Cairo, Apr 9 (IANS): At least six people were killed and eight others wounded as a microbus collided with a farming tractor in Egypt's Giza province adjacent to the capital Cairo, an Egyptian Health Ministry official said.

"The accident took place early in the morning as the microbus crashed into the tractor near an exit on Al-Kurimat Road in Giza," Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar, spokesman of the Health Ministry, told Xinhua news agency, noting the injured people were taken to a nearby hospital.

Egyptian local media said that most victims were passengers of the microbus that was severely damaged, the news agency reported.

Road accidents claim thousands of lives in the most populous Arab country every year. Most of the accidents are caused by human errors including speeding and negligence of traffic rules, as well as poor maintenance of roads.

Over the past few years, Egypt has been upgrading its road network by building new roads and bridges and repairing old ones to ease traffic and reduce relevant accidents.