At least 35 people were killed and 53 others were injured today in a traffic jam on the road connecting Cairo to Alexandria on Egypt’s northern coast, state media reported and AFP reported.

The crash killed “35 people, of whom at least 18 have been charred,” Al-Ahram newspaper reported, listing the names of “at least 53 injured.”

According to the English-language version of the Al-Ahram website, which is cited by the Ministry of Health and Population of Egypt, the dead are 32 and the injured 63.

According to the same source, citing police sources and cited by Reuters, the collision was caused by an oil leak in one of the cars, in the area of ​​Beheira, about 132 km north of the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Road accidents are frequent in Egypt where the roads are not well maintained and the traffic code is generally not followed.

Images posted on social media show an overturned truck across the expressway with the asphalt partially burned. Further on, at least one bus and a minibus appear to be largely charred, as are several cars, some of which are still burning.

All around are idlers and queues of cars waiting, amid shouts and commotion in a thick cloud of black smoke.

Officially, 7,000 people were killed in road accidents in 2021 in the Arab world’s most populous country, which has 105 million inhabitants.