The tracks were spattered with blood. Small shoes and satchels were scattered all over place. Pages torn from the children's textbooks were flying about in the breeze. Mangled pieces of metal, that were once a school bus, lay on the ground as a fresh, heartrending reminder of one of Egypt's endemic ailments – negligence. Egyptians woke up Saturday morning to the shocking news that more than 50 schoolchildren, aged between four and 12, had been killed when their school was hit by a train in the village of el-Mandara in the Governorate of Assiut in Upper Egypt. The tragedy came days after two trains collided, leaving four people dead, in Fayoum Governorate, in northern Upper Egypt. Preliminary investigations into the Assiut tragedy pointed an accusing finger at the railway employee responsible for manning the barriers on the level-crossing where the mishap occurred. Officials were quoted by local media as saying that the employee had dozed off while on duty, leaving the barriers on the crossing open. Apparently unaware that a train was coming, the driver of the ill-fated bus drove onto the crossing, only to be struck by the train that dragged the stricken vehicle 3km down the line, according to witnesses. In the aftermath, the Transport Minister and the head of the State-run National Railway Authority resigned. Prime Minister Hesham Qandil, accompanied by several governmental ministers, visited the survivors and offered condolences to the distraught families of the young dead. President Mohammed Morsi vowed to bring to justice those found to be responsible for the disaster. And that was all! The official reaction leaves much to be desired if the large number of deaths on Egypt's roads is to be reduced. The nation has one of the world's worst road and rail records, no small thanks to reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and ill-kept cars. In recent months, motorists have been breaking the traffic laws more and more, adding to the problem. Driving through a red light or the wrong way down a one-way street happens all the time in Egypt, while many passenger vehicles and trains are woefully inadequate in terms of safety standards. In an address to worshippers in a mosque near his home in Cairo on Friday, Morsi said: “The Egypt of today is different from the Egypt of yesterday." The message targeted Israel for its deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip. The President was right in making the remark. His response to the Gaza war was quite different from Mubarak's. Morsi recalled the Egyptian Ambassador to Israel and sent his Prime Minister on a visit of solidarity to the devastated enclave. The President also warned Israel in the strongest possible terms that “Egypt will not leave Gaza on its own" in the face of the aggression. All this marks a U-turn in Egypt's policy towards Israel. Still, the Morsi administration needs to act very resolutely and swiftly to eliminate the negligence and inefficiency, which seem to have hit virtually every area of life in Egypt, where, on Saturday, two road tragedies claimed at least 63 lives. On the other hand, four days of inexorable Israeli bombardment of Gaza left 40 dead by Saturday night. In 2009, Morsi, an opposition lawmaker at the time, lashed out at the Mubarak regime in the wake of a train crash that killed 18 people. “What is happening with our rail service is a farce in the full sense of the word," he told the then Parliament, that was dominated by Mubarak's cronies. “The big shots should be brought to account," he added, demanding that the then Prime Minister and Transport Minister be tried over the crash. The Transport Minister resigned a few days later. Morsi, now wielding executive and legislative powers, would make history if he acted resolutely to uproot dereliction of duty and corruption, which have combined to literally bleed the nation dry. Only then would Egypt be really different.
