Bomb attack derails train

Dozens dead, 100 injured:

RUSSIA: An elite passenger train carrying hundreds of people from Moscow to Saint Petersburg was derailed by a bomb attack that left dozens dead and nearly 100 injured, officials said Saturday.

The attack occurred late Friday about 400 kilometres (250 miles) northwest of Moscow in a forest where the same train, the Nevsky Express, popular with tourists and commuters, was hit by a similar bomb attack in August 2007.

“We are indeed talking about a terrorist attack,” Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the federal investigative committee, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

The committee said in a statement that it had recovered bomb fragments at the scene of the derailment, and a top official told President Dmitry Medvedev the disaster had been caused by a bomb blast.

“It appears that an improvised explosive device with the force of around seven kilogrammes of TNT was detonated,” the head of the FSB security service said in a meeting with Medvedev shown on state television.

Markin gave a similar explanation, saying evidence found at the scene suggested “an explosive device was detonated along the train’s path.”Mangled, overturned carriages were strewn across the tracks.

Uglovka,Sunday, AFP