Details of the accident are still unclear, but officials say that one train rammed into the other, outside Qalyoub station, 20 kilometers from Cairo, causing a fire and overturning several cars.north of Both trains were traveling from the Nile Delta to Cairo -- one from Mansoura and one from Benha. The trains were crowded with commuters. The state news agency reports that passengers were about to disembark from the Benha train when the Mansoura train barreled into it.

Qalyoub Governor Adly Hussein says the Mansoura train was speeding and the driver had ignored train signals outside the Benha railway station.

Television footage shows rescuers sawing the crumpled train cars, in efforts to pull out the dead still trapped under wreckage. The scene was strewn with clothes and shoes and chairs ripped out of the carriages by the impact.

Egypt has seen several major train accidents this year, including a collision in February near Alexandria that injured 20 people.

Egypt's deadliest railway disaster was in (February) 2002, when a fire swept through a crowded passenger train and killed 360 people.