A hot air balloon caught fire and exploded as it was flying over Egypt's ancient temple city of Luxor on Tuesday, killing 19 tourists, a security official said.
An employee at the company operating the balloon told AFP the tourists were from Korea, Japan and Britain, as well as one Egyptian.
"This is terrible, just terrible," the employee told AFP by telephone in floods of tears, declining to give her name.
"We don't yet know what happened exactly or what went wrong," she said.
Earlier a security official said that 19 people had died but said they were from Hong Kong, Japan, France and Britain.
The balloon which was carrying 21 people was flying at 300 meters (1,000 feet) over Qurna, in Luxor's West Bank, when it caught fire before exploding, the official said.
The two survivors, including the balloon's pilot, have been taken to a hospital, he said.
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This is a tragedy, condolences to the families of those who died. No one should trust the Egyptian government and those in power currently under this transition. Egypt is going through a revolution where the Egyptian people face death and torture in order to protest and fight negligence, corruption and crimes committed everyday by the state. Events such as this show it will never be 'business as usual' and no one is safe in Egypt until then. As an aware citizen or consumer i would boycott a country that is run by unethical factions (i.e. a military junta and a non-transparent party such as the muslim brotherhood) who commit crimes against their own people.