At least 19 people have died and more than 100 injured in a train derailment south of Cairo, according to officials.
The official Mena news agency quoted health ministry officials who said 107 wounded were being treated in hospitals near the site of the accident in Giza's Badrasheen neighbourhood over Monday night. They said the number of dead was expected to rise.
The accident comes less than two weeks after a new transportation minister was appointed to overhaul the rail system, and just two months after a deadly collision between a train and school bus.
The state-owned Ahram website reported that the 12-carriage train was carrying 1,328 conscripted Egyptian soldiers headed north from Assiut to Cairo.
Roy Hamad Gaafar, a survivor, said he was on board when the last two carriages detached from the rest and derailed.
Images carried on Egyptian satellite channels showed residents using flashlights to help rescuers reach people trapped in the wreckage.
President Mohammed Morsi named a new transportation minister on 6 January in an effort to improve railway safety. The post had been left vacant in the aftermath of an accident that killed 49 kindgergarten pupils in November 2012 when a speeding train hit their school bus.
Accidents due to negligence regularly killed scores over the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak. The railway's worst disaster was in February 2002 when a train heading to southern Egypt caught fire, killing 363 people. Media reports quoting official statistics say rail and road accidents killed more than 7,000 people in 2010.
