At least 31 killed, 109 wounded in trains collision in Egyptian city of Alexandria

Cairo: Two passenger trains collided on Friday just outside Egypt's Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, killing at least 31 people and injuring about 109, according to two medical officials.

Two senior medical officials in Alexandria, Mohammed Abu Homs and Magdy Hegazy, gave the casualty tolls. Abu Homs said the death toll was likely to rise further.

A statement by the Egyptian Railways Authority said a train traveling to Alexandria from Cairo, Egypt's capital, hit the back end of another train, which was waiting at a small station in the district of Khorshid, just west of Alexandria.

The stationary train had just arrived from Port Said, a Mediterranean city on the northern tip of the Suez Canal, when it was hit, according to the statement.

The statement did not say what caused the accident, saying only that the authority's experts would be investigating.

Egypt's railway system has a poor safety record, mostly blamed on decades of badly maintained equipment and poor management. Friday's collision was the latest in a series of deadly accidents that have claimed hundreds of lives over the years.

Local television stations broadcast images of mangled train coaches on the tracks as crowds gathered around trying to help the victims, with ambulances standing by.