CAIRO - Egypt's transportation minister Mohammed Mansur resigned on Tuesday over a train crash that killed 18 people earlier this week, the official news agency MENA reported.
The agency said President Hosni Mubarak has accepted Mansur's resignation, in which he took responsibility for the deadly accident that also injured 36 people.
The accident happened when a passenger train drove full-speed into the back of another southwest of the Egyptian capital Cairo on Saturday. The first train had made an unscheduled halt, apparently after the driver saw a water buffalo on the track.
Egypt's national railway system is the biggest in the Middle East, with early 5,000 km (3,150 miles) of track, according to Egyptian National Railways, which employs 86,000 people.
Egypt's deadliest ever train crash happened in February 2002 when the bodies of at least 361 passengers were recovered from a train following a fire.
Egyptians protest at Algeria's Cairo embassy