Fifteen people killed in Egypt bus crash

Fifteen people have died after a bus packed with 77 schoolgirls was swept off a road by floods in southern Egypt.

Poorly equipped rescue workers and local residents struggled to save passengers on the bus, which overturned in a deep trench on the road leading to the city of Minya, 124 miles (200 kms) south of the capital, Cairo.

The last two survivors were pulled out of the waters early today.

Several witnesses reported seeing bodies of young girls wearing headscarves and school uniforms floating in the water.

The dead included an ambulance driver who had rescued 20 of those on board the bus before the floods swept him away.

The school girls and their teachers had been on a trip to Minya and were returning home to the town of Assiut.

According to the police report, survivors recounted that the bus driver had stopped to have a closer look at the surrounding terrain, inundated with torrential rains and flooding when the waters suddenly swept them away.

Egypt’s southern region, where village houses are built of mud bricks and the roads are poorly maintained, was heavily affected during the rains and bad winter weather earlier this week.