People survey the aftermath of a fiery car crash outside the National Cancer Institute in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Aug. 5, 2019. The multiple-car crash set off an explosion that ignited a fire at Egypt’s main cancer hospital, the government said.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

CAIRO (AP) — A multiple-car crash on a Cairo street in front of Egypt’s main cancer hospital set off an explosion that triggered a fire outside the building, killing a total of 20 people, authorities said Monday.

The crash and the explosion also injured 47 others, the health ministry said. Some of the injured suffered burns and broken bones, it added, though it wasn’t immediately clear if any of the casualties were inside the hospital.

The Interior Ministry said a vehicle driving against the traffic — for reasons that were not specified — had collided with up to three other cars late on Sunday, causing the explosion on the Nile-side street, the city’s famous Corniche. At least 78 patients were evacuated to other hospitals while the fire was later brought under control.

The blast damaged the cancer hospital’s main gate and several patient rooms and wards, according to a statement from the Cairo University. Its Medical School uses the institute as an educational facility.

Television stations broadcast footage of shattered windows and doors on Monday morning. The health ministry did not say if any hospital patients or staff were among the casualties.

“Parts of the ceiling of the hospital were collapsing as I got out of my room,” said Mahmoud el-Sayed, one of the patients at the National Cancer Institute. “People were running everywhere and shouting.”

There was no immediate explanation as to why the crash had caused such a large explosion and officials could not be reached for questions about possible sabotage or whether there had been any explosive materials at the scene.

The county’s top prosecutor ordered an investigation into the crash, according to the state-run MENA news agency.

“We heard an explosion and … the bank entrance glass was shattered everywhere,” said Abdel-Rahman Mohamed, a security officer at a bank at the opposite side of the hospital.

Another eyewitness, Mohamed Ashraf, said many cars in the vicinity were also damaged and those inside them suffered burns. “There were around 20 cars” in the area, he said. “People were struggling to get the passengers out of the vehicles.”

The health ministry said the injured were taken to different hospitals for treatment.

Health Minister Hala Zayed said in TV comments that unidentified body parts were being collected in a body bag from the site of the explosion. It was also possible that some bodies had ended up in the Nile, she added.

The police quickly cordoned off the area of the crash. Civil defense workers were seen Monday morning removing debris as officials milled about, inspecting the hospital to determine the extent of the damage to the building.

Some patients with scheduled appointments for Monday were left stranded, waiting outside the hospital with their relatives.

“We do not know where to go,” said farmer Ahmed Ramadan who had brought his daughter for a round of chemo therapy from their home province of Beni Suef, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) south of Cairo.

The hospital is close to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, which became known internationally as the scene of mass protests in the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Road accidents are common in Egypt, often the result of badly maintained roads and poor enforcement of traffic laws. The country’s official statistics agency says 8,000 crashes last year caused more than 3,000 deaths and 12,000 injuries. </s> Seventeen people have died and 32 have been injured in an explosion outside Egypt’s National Cancer Institute in central Cairo, Egypt’s health ministry said early on Monday, Reuters reports.

A car driving against traffic on Cairo’s corniche collided with three other cars, causing the explosion, Egypt’s interior ministry said in a statement.

Egypt’s public prosecutor is investigating the cause of the incident, sources told Reuters, but there was no official statement indicating that the explosion was an attack. </s> At least 20 people were killed and almost 50 injured when an explosives-filled car crashed into other vehicles in central Cairo.

The car was to be used in a “terrorist operation” and had been prepared by the Hasm militant group, an affiliate of the Muslim brotherhood, the interior ministry said Monday.

The explosion took place outside Egypt’s National Cancer Institute after a car collided with three other vehicles as it drove against traffic on Cairo’s corniche.

The interior ministry said a technical inspection indicated “an amount of explosives was inside the car, which caused it to explode when it collided.”

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi described the blast as a “terrorist incident”. In a social media post, he offered his condolences to the victims’ families and the Egyptian people.

Saudi Arabia condemned the incident and said it stood with Egypt in the fight against terrorism.

A report by news site almasryalyoum.com said the car explosion, which happened in front of the Institute, shattered the school’s main façade. The report said several cars parked in front of the institute were burned, and patients, doctors and workers were evacuated from inside the building.

“Patients and their families lined the sidewalk in front of the Institute in light of the lack of ambulances to transport them to hospitals, prompting a number of residents of the area to transport the injured in their own cars,” said the report.

Traffic enforcers closed the streets leading to the blast site, it said.

A video posted on Twitter by the same news site showed firetrucks and ambulances all over the disaster area. </s> Cairo [Egypt], Aug 6 (ANI): Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi on Monday called the car explosion that took place near a cancer institute here earlier today as a "terrorist incident" in which at least 20 people were killed.

"I extend my deepest condolences to the Egyptian people and to the families of the martyrs who died as a result of the cowardly terrorist incident in the vicinity of the Kasr Al-Aini area yesterday evening," the president wrote on Twitter.

"The car contained explosives, and the collision led to their detonation," the interior ministry said in a statement.

"It is estimated that the car was being transported to a location for use in the execution of a terrorist operation," the statement read.

It added that the car was driving in the wrong direction the previous night (local time) when it collided with three other vehicles, causing a major blast. 

The attack was carried out by the Hasm group, a local Islamic terror group. 

Al Jazeera reported around 40 people were wounded in the incident.

The explosion caused a blaze that forced the partial evacuation of the National Cancer Institute, the health ministry said. Around 78 patients at the institute were transferred to other hospitals following the blast.

The state media further reported that all of the wounded were in a stable condition except for three who were taken in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Khaled Megahed, a spokesman for the health ministry, said at a press conference on Monday that patients in the ICU suffered "several burns of varying degrees". (ANI) </s> CAIRO — Seventeen people have died and 32 have been injured in an explosion outside Egypt’s National Cancer Institute in central Cairo, Egypt’s health ministry said early on Monday.

A car driving against traffic on Cairo’s corniche collided with three other cars, causing the explosion, Egypt’s interior ministry said in a statement.

Egypt’s public prosecutor is investigating the cause of the incident, sources told Reuters, but there was no official statement indicating that the explosion was an attack. (Reporting by Haitham Ahmed, Alaa Swilam and Mahmoud Reda Mourad, Writing by Nafisa Eltahir; editing by Grant McCool) </s> At least 17 were killed and 32 others injured in an explosion outside Egypt's National Cancer Institute in central Cairo, Egypt's health ministry said early on Monday.

A car driving against traffic on Cairo's corniche collided with three other cars, causing the explosion, Egypt's interior ministry said in a statement.

Videos posted online showed fire trucks trying to control a massive fire, which damaged several cars.

Egypt's public prosecutor is investigating the cause of the incident, sources told Reuters, but there was no official statement indicating that the explosion was an attack. </s> CAIRO (Reuters) - Twenty people were killed and 47 injured when a car packed with explosives intended for a militant attack blew up outside Cairo’s main cancer hospital on Monday, the interior ministry said.

Officials initially said the explosion was caused when a car driving against the traffic collided with three other cars.

The front of the hospital suffered extensive damaged, with an entrance wrecked and rubble strewn over the pavement. Victims’ belongings were scattered among the debris.

The interior ministry said the car involved in the incident had been stolen a few months ago.

“The initial technical examination also showed that the car contained explosives, and the collision led to their detonation,” a ministry statement said.

Related Coverage Car involved in Cairo blast contained explosives: interior ministry

“It is estimated that the car was being transported to a location for use in the execution of a terrorist operation,” the ministry added.

It said the Hasm militant group was responsible for rigging up the car.

Egypt accuses Hasm, which emerged in 2016 and has claimed several attacks, of being a wing of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement denies this and says it seeks change through peaceful means only.

The explosion caused a blaze that forced the partial evacuation of the National Cancer Institute, the health ministry said.

One resident, who gave her name as Salwa, said bodies had been fused together by the explosion.

An Egyptian man carries his son with cancer as he walks past a police car in front of the damaged facade of the National Cancer Institute, after an overnight fire from a blast, in Cairo, Egypt August 5, 2019. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

“There was a sound of an extremely loud blast. It was no way two cars crashing. The car must have been rigged with explosives,” she told Reuters Television.

Another witness, who declined to give his name, said the car’s driver ran away before it exploded.

Later in the morning, investigators scoured the scene amid a heavy police presence.

Egypt’s public prosecutor is investigating the incident, sources told Reuters.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expressed his condolences to the Egyptian people and the families of the victims. He pledged to eradicate “this brutal terrorism”.

Egyptian security forces are waging a counterinsurgency campaign against Islamist militants, some with links to Islamic State, that is focused in the north of the Sinai Peninsula.

Slideshow (16 Images)

Attacks outside Sinai have become relatively rare, although there have been several security incidents in recent months in Giza, across the Nile from central Cairo.

In May, an explosion targeting a tourist bus injured at least 12 people, mostly South African tourists, near the Giza pyramids.

In December, three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian guide were killed, and at least 10 others injured when a roadside bomb hit their tour bus near the pyramids. </s> CAIRO (AP) — The Latest on the deadly explosion in Cairo (all times local):

Egypt's Interior Ministry says the multiple-car crash on a Cairo street in front of the country's main cancer hospital that killed at least 20 people involved a car bomb.

Monday's statement by the ministry says an Islamic militant group, known as Hasm, with links with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, was driving the car with the bomb late on Sunday down the Corniche, intending to carry out a militant attack elsewhere in the country when the crash set off the bomb and the explosion took place.

Egyptian authorities say a multiple-car crash on a Cairo street in front of the main cancer hospital set off an explosion that triggered a fire outside the building, killing a total of 20 people.

The government says the crash and the explosion also injured 47 others, some of whom suffered burns and broken bones though it wasn't immediately clear if any of the casualties were inside the hospital.

The Interior Ministry said a vehicle driving against the traffic — for reasons that were not specified — had collided with up to three other cars late on Sunday, causing the explosion on the Nile-side street, the city's famous Corniche. At least 54 patients were evacuated to other hospitals while the fire was later brought under control. </s> CAIRO, Egypt — A huge explosion caused by a speeding car in central Cairo overnight, killing at least 20 people, was a “terrorist incident,” Egypt’s president said Monday.

“I extend my deepest condolences to the Egyptian people and the families of the martyrs killed in the cowardly terrorist incident,” read a post on Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s official Facebook and Twitter feeds.

The collision happened just before midnight Sunday, when a speeding car driving against the traffic crashed into three other vehicles outside the National Cancer Institute in the Egyptian capital. According to the interior ministry, the car was rigged with explosives.

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Four of the 20 people killed remain unidentified, the health ministry said, while 47 others were wounded.

Between “three and four (of the injured) are in critical condition in the intensive care unit,” Khaled Megahed, a spokesman for the health ministry, told a press conference.

He said they suffered from “several burns of varying degrees.”

Body parts were also retrieved from the scene, he added.

Egypt’s prosecutor general has ordered an investigation to determine the causes of the collision.

Police said they suspected the Hasm group, an armed affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, of being behind the attack.

Social media users posted footage of cars ablaze at the scene and of patients being evacuated from the Cancer Institute, which was severely damaged and charred in the explosion.

Megahed said 78 cancer patients from the institute were moved to other hospitals to continue their treatments.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
A car drives into three other cars causing an explosive crash outside the National Cancer Institute Egypt campus in central Cairo, killing 20 people and injuring 47 others. The Interior Ministry says that the car that hit the others contained explosives and was to be used in a terrorist operation. The driver fled the scene before the explosion. The minister accuses the Islamist Hasm Movement of being behind the attack.