2 killed, 30 injured in Egypt's highway crash due to bad weather

At least two people were killed and 30 others injured in a road accident on Monday at Egypt's northern Cairo-Alexandria highway due to the stormy, dusty weather overwhelming the country, state-run Al-Ahram news website reported.

The crash took place as a tour bus hit a passenger microbus near a prison on the highway amid a dust storm that caused difficulty of vision.

The bad weather nationwide led Egypt to temporarily close most of its seaports including those of Alexandria, Sharm El-Sheikh and Ain Sokhna.

"This is because Egypt is affected by an air depression accompanied by western to southern winds coming from the Western Desert," Wahid Saudi, media spokesman for the Egyptian Meteorological Authority, told Xinhua.

"These winds are so fast that they raise dust in a way that may reach a dust storm," he explained, noting it might come to end later in the day.

Road accidents in Egypt exacted about 12,000 lives every year according to the World Health Organization.

Lack of highway monitoring systems, poor road maintenance and negligence of traffic rules are behind the high rate of road accidents in the most populous Arab state. Enditem