Two trains collided on Wednesday north of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, killing at least 15 people, authorities said, the latest deadly accident involving the country's underfunded and mismanaged railways.

Another 40 people were injured in the accident, which took place in the Beheira province in the Nile delta, according to the country's state MENA news agency.

The collision involved a cargo train and a passenger train heading to Cairo, the Health Ministry said. The casualty number was likely to increase, it added.

Egypt's railway system has a poor safety record, mostly blamed on decades of badly maintained equipment and poor management.

Egyptians have long complained that successive governments have failed to enforce basic safety measures for the railways. A string of crashes have further inflamed public anger over the antiquated transport network.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, but it comes months after 41 people died in a train collision near the coastal city of Alexandria last August.

That was the deadliest train accident in Egypt since a November 2013 collision between a train and a bus killed 27 people south of Cairo.

In 2002, 373 people died when a fire ripped through a crowded train, also south of the capital.