A Russian express train heading from Moscow to St Petersburg was derailed late on Monday after the driver heard a loud bang under the wheels, overturning carriages and wounding dozens of passengers. The derailment occurred in the Novgorod region, about 500 km (300 miles) north of Moscow, near the village of Malaya Vishera. The line between Moscow and Russia's second city of St Petersburg is among the country's busiest.
Russian Railways said in a statement it was the result of "unauthorised interference in the functioning of the train". One eyewitness said the derailment was preceded by two explosions. "There was a bang under the train. Unfortunately that is the only way we can describe it until investigators and the FSB (state security service) ... reach their own conclusions," Sergei Mikhailov, an aide to Russian Railways chief Vladimir Yakunin, told Vesti-24 television station.
The train derailed just after crossing a bridge over a road, said a Reuters photographer at the scene.
A conductor on the train showed Reuters a video he recorded on his mobile telephone of a crater about 2 metres (6 ft) across that could be seen on the bridge, where the rails should have been. "We heard two explosions, then the train put on the brakes suddenly," one conductor, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters. "The train shook. A panic started," he said. "We smashed out the glass and helped the passengers out ... The worst damage was in the restaurant car. That is where most of the casualties were."
Viktor Beltsov, a spokesman for Russia's Emergencies Ministry, said 27 injured people were admitted to hospital. "Three are in a serious condition," he said. No one was killed. Russian news agencies said 60 people were hurt but most did not need hospital treatment. The Reuters photographer said nearly all of the carriages and the locomotive were off their tracks, while at least three carriages were tipped onto their side. Powerful lights had been set up at the trackside as FSB investigators inspected the site and railway workers with cutting equipment removed damaged rails.
"As a result of an explosion at 21:38 (1738 GMT) ... several carriages of passenger train No. 166 from Moscow to St Petersburg were derailed," Russian Railways said in an initial statement. Later statements removed mention of an explosion. |