At least eight people were killed and 31 others injured today after a number of vehicles collided on a desert road near the Suez Canal city of Ismailia in Egypt.
At least 14 ambulances rushed to the place of the incident and transferred the injured to hospitals in Ismailia and 10th of Ramadan City in Sharqiya, the Ministry of Health said.
Road accidents are common in Egypt. In November, two major accidents took place in different governorates, killing at least 28 people.
Following the accidents, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had assigned a specialist council for community development to devise a complete scheme to minimise road accidents.
The government has again amended the traffic law, for the second time in six months, imposing harsher punishments on violators.
Egypt has one of the world's highest accident rates owing to careless driving and poor road and vehicle conditions.
The WHO ranks Egypt as the world's tenth worst country in terms of road accidents, after India, China and the US.
