The ministry said 21 others were injured in the collision.
The accident took place when two carriages of a passenger train broke off and rammed into a nearby goods train, the Egyptian news portal al-Youm al-Saba reported, citing the province’s security chief.
Transport Minister, Hesham Arafat, left Cairo to visit the site of the collision, state-run newspaper al-Ahram said.
Egypt has seen several railway tragedies in recent years.
In August, more than 40 people were killed in a collision between two passenger trains in Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria.
In the aftermath, the chief of the country’s state-run railways authority resigned and the government promised to upgrade the service.
Egypt’s worst rail disaster took place in 2002 when a passenger train caught fire, killing more than 360 people.
dpa/NAN
