At least 15 people drowned when a small boat collided with a barge and capsized on the Nile River near Cairo last night, Egypt's interior ministry said in a statement.
Fishermen and police are still searching the river for bodies and survivors.
Some eyewitnesses said the authorities were doing little.
"The television is saying 15 bodies were found and the search for the remaining nine is still taking place, but there are at least 30 bodies still in the water. The majority of the bodies were found by the fishermen. Where is the police?" said Gamal Abdelhady.
"The police that was deployed, until now, as you see, are just circling the water in vain. They haven't extracted any bodies," said Mohamed Anwar, another fisherman.
The collision occurred on the Nile near Giza, across the river from Cairo.
Fishermen Maher Ghraib blamed the captain of the barge for the accident.
"The mistake was of the captain of the barge, he should operate from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. - not after that, because it gets dark," he said.
"The little boat, people are saying, was carrying 70 people! How did it get a license for that? Was it licensed to carry 70 people?"
Six people have been rescued, while another seven believed to have been on the boat were still unaccounted for, security sources said.