Cairo: A cargo ship collided with a boat on the Nile carrying people celebrating an engagement, leaving at least 18 dead, Egyptian police said yesterday as divers searched for missing passengers.
The captain of the cargo boat and his assistants were arrested following the accident late on Wednesday in the Warraq district north of Cairo, the authorities said.
A police general on the scene said that 18 corpses had been retrieved. Police and medics had earlier said 21 people were killed. Five survivors were plucked from the river but an unknown number were still missing, the police general said.
At least two children drowned, according to medical and security sources. Witnesses said fishermen had been first on the scene at night to pull out the corpses and survivors.
The search was initially hampered by darkness but resumed after daybreak, with police and emergency vessels trawling the river looking for survivors.
A rescue diver emerged from the water empty handed as a crowd of onlookers and relatives of the passengers gathered on the river bank. Rescue workers used a mechanical digger to raise the wreckage of the party boat from the water.
“At around 8-8:30pm, a big cargo ship collided with the boat,” said Mostafa Al Soweissi, whose brother had captained the chartered vessel. “After the collision we took fisherman boats and from 8:30 until now we took out around 19 bodies,” he said, reflecting confusion over the exact toll.
Ahmed Helmy, another relative of passengers, said at least five of his family members were killed in the accident. “Two children are missing,” he said.
Helmy accused emergency services of arriving late, but a health ministry official said that rescue efforts had initially been hampered by the crowd.
Family and friends of a young couple had hired the boat to celebrate their engagement. It was not clear whether the couple were among the dead.
The captain has been detained for four days along with three of his assistants on suspicion of manslaughter. AFP
