Fifteen dead after heavy rain hits Egypt

Fifteen people have been killed and 47 others injured as a result of torrential rain and flooding in Egypt since Thursday, health officials have said.


Seven people were killed and 23 others injured after heavy rain hit the town of Ras Gharib in the Red Sea governorate, MENA agency reported the provincial health department as saying. Schools in the coastal town, which is around 150 km north of Hurghada, have been indefinitely suspended due to the flooding.

Six people were also killed and 24 others wounded early on Friday when two buses and three other vehicles overturned in floods on a highway in the governorate of Sohag, which lies some 500 km south of Cairo, the health ministry said.

Authorities closed off the road in both directions after many vehicles became trapped in the floods, a provincial official told Al-Ahram Arabic news website.

Twenty-six ambulances were rushed to the scene of the accident, Ahmed El-Ansary, the head of the ambulance authority, told the website.

Two people were also killed by electric shocks resulting from thunder in Fayed, in the Suez Canal governorate of Ismailiya.

Heavy rains caused flooding in several towns in Upper Egypt and along the Red Sea coast on Wednesday and Thursday. Impoverished areas with poor infrastructure have been worse hit.

The capital Cairo has been spared the unstable weather conditions.
 [ahram.org.eg]
28/10/16
-