BBC News Online: World: Middle East

Survivors tell of Egyptian train horror

The death toll is still rising

Inside what remained of the charred train, bodies of victims who had apparently tried to escape the blaze were piled up at the ends of two carriages.

"We pushed each other and we were suffocating from the smoke. We threw each other out the windows," one survivor told the Reuters news agency from his hospital bed.

Confusion

Another survivor, 22-year-old Said Fuad Amin, jumped from the burning train and was being treated for a broken hand and possible concussion.

Then he saw the fire and people running, including one woman whose clothes were ablaze.

"People were running like crazy," Mr Amin told AP.

He ran, too, until he found a window broken open.

"I thought I was going to die anyway, so I jumped," he said.

That was the last thing he remembered before waking up in the hospital. He said he was worried about the friends he had been travelling with.

Another witness, Adel Hassan Fadlallah, 21, who also survived by jumping out a window, said his carriage quickly filled up with smoke.

He said panicking passengers ran and stumbled over each other.