Ammon News - By AL ARABIYA /AGENCIES

An accident on Saturday left up to 49 children dead when a train crashed with a school bus crossing its rail tracks in Egypt’s southern province of Assiut, Al Arabiya correspondent reported.

The bus, which was taking 60 children on a trip organized by their nursery, was struck on a railway crossing in Manfalut, 356 kilometers (220 miles) south of Cairo, police said. The children were between four and six years old.

“The deaths have now reached 49. There are 18 children injured,” Assiut governor Yehya Keshk told state television.

“There is a team of 45 doctors looking after the injured children.”

The worker manning the level crossing which had been left open was asleep when the bus tried to cross the tracks, Keshk said.

"He has been arrested of course."

Parents of the children were staging angry demonstrations near the scene of the horrific accident, demanding the death penalty for those responsible, police said.

A state television correspondent described the scene as “terrifying” with the blood-splattered bodies of children on the ground, before they were taken to nearby Manfalut hospital.

President Mohamed Mursi has ordered the prime minister, the ministers of defense and health and the governor of Assiut “to offer all the assistance to the families of the victims,” reported the state’s Middle East News Agency.

Transport Minister Rashad al-Metini and the head of the Egyptian Railway Authority have resigned in the wake of the accident, state media reported.

Egypt’s roads and railways have a poor safety record. Egyptians have complained successive governments have failed to enforce basic safety standards, leading to a string of deadly accidents.