SHOCKING DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 30 April 1931, Page 5

SHOCKING DISASTER

EGYPTIAN TRAIN AFIRE. OVER FORTY DEAD. Pr«ns As&ociation.—P j Electric Telegraph.—(Jopy right.] (Received this day at 1 0 p.m.) CAIRO, April 29. Forty-one are dead and forty-one injured in the worst disaster of Egypt, ian railways. An express excursion train, crowded with holiday makers, caught fire between Cairo ai'd Alexandria. Passengers frantically waved garments from windows in an attempt to attract the driver’s attention, but the train went on at full ipierd fanning the flames, which spread with terrjfHc rapidity. The train was made up of some of the oldest rolling stock on the State railways. The rickotty coaches flared like tinder. There wore indescribable scenes of panic. The screaming passengers in three coaches were either suffocated, burned or chanced jumping out. The line near Realm was strewn with maimed bodies. Many of those leaping oilt wete caught in the wheels and decapitated of- iiinbs torn off. The train travelled a crin si durable distance before the signalman at Benha noticed flames and set the signals at danger. The victims are all Egyptians going to uairo for Bairam festival. The deiul include top children, who were either trampled on in the packed compartments or incinerated. The fire is believed to be due to an overheated axle of a third class rear carriage. The driver was arrested.