Twenty people were killed and three others injured earlier on Wednesday when a passenger bus collided with a cement transport vehicle in Assiut, the health ministry said.

According to the health ministry, the accident took place at the eastern desert road in Assiut.

Thirty-six ambulances were sent to the accident location to transfer the victims and the injured to nearby hospitals.

The prosecution opened an investigation into the accident and its causes.

Though fatal road accidents take place on a near-daily basis in Egypt, which used to suffer from poorly maintained road infrastructure, governmental efforts to upgrade roads have been fruitfully ongoing in recent years.

The number of road accidents in Egypt fell by around 30 percent in 2019. According to a report by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, there were 9,992 accidents in 2019, a noticeable drop from 2014’s 14,403.