Twenty people were killed in two unrelated accidents on Egyptian roads Saturday, and others were reported to be missing as the pick-up which they were traveling in lost control and swerved into an irrigation canal in Egypt's Nile Delta.
According to the state-run MENA news agency, seven people were killed and 11 injured in a collision between two taxis on the Cairo-Assiut agricultural highway near the town of Al Wasta.
Police sources were quoted by MENA as saying that “13 drowned when the truck overturned in a canal in the Nile Delta province.”
The driver of the vehicle “fled the scene of the crash” Reuters reported.
Eleven others survived, but were injured leaping from the vehicle before it overturned in the Mahmoudiya canal, near the town of Kom Hamada, AFP said.
Egypt has one of the highest rates of traffic deaths in the world.
Egypt has recently drawn up an emergency plan designed to upgrade rescue services and facilities, and minimize damage caused by accidents and catastrophes.
Minister of Health Ismail Sallam has been quoted as saying that 2,138 ambulances had been added to the country’s fleet, including a number with ICU units.
The minister added that the number of fatalities nationwide due to accidents was sinking – Albawaba.com
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