Crash in Egypt kills U.S. tourists
Americans were visiting temples
CAIRO, Egypt – A tour bus slammed into a truck in southern Egypt on Sunday, killing eight Americans and injuring 21 others, the state news agency said.
The bus was taking a tour group on the 115-mile journey from Aswan to the ancient temples of Abu Simbel along Lake Nasser when it ran into a truck carrying sand parked on the side of a single-lane desert road, killing six women and two men.
The Egyptian driver and a guide were also injured in the accident.
An official of Misr Sinai Tours, which was running the bus service, said the accident occurred around dawn while it was still dark about 13 miles outside of Aswan.
The official said the bus, carrying 37 passengers, was part of a larger tour of 116 American tourists traveling in three buses.
The other buses did not continue on to Abu Simbel and instead returned to Aswan, he said, declining to be identified.
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo confirmed that the injured are being moved by military transport to Cairo, but said in a statement that it didn’t have any further information on the accident or those involved.
Road accidents are common in Egypt because of bad roads and poor enforcement of traffic rules, and crashes involving tour groups are not uncommon.
Last month, eight foreign tourists were killed when their tour bus lost control and flipped over several times on a winding mountain road near a resort on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, while in October six Belgian tourists were killed in a crash in the south.
An estimated 8,000 people die in car accidents annually in Egypt.