Nine dead, 11 hurt in Egypt minibus crash

CAIRO, Nov 22 (Reuters) Nine people were killed and 11 others injured when a minibus collided head-on with a passenger car on a highway south of the Egyptian capital, security sources said.

The sources said the minibus collided with an oncoming car after it tried to overtake another vehicle on a desert highway. A second passenger car then collided with the vehicles after the initial impact.

The crash was the latest in a series of deadly Egyptian transport accidents that have sparked public anger at what critics call the government's failure to enforce safety standards.

Reckless driving and the poor condition of roads are blamed for many crashes in Egypt. Dozens of people have been killed in a recent spate of rail and road crashes.

In the deadliest such incident, 58 people were killed in the Nile Delta town of Qalyoub in August when two commuter trains collided in Egypt's worst rail accident in four years.

REUTERS DKS PM0444