Terrorist Attack Derails Russian Train; 30 People Killed

Via GlobalSecurity.org -

Russia’s domestic intelligence service has said that the train derailment that killed about 30 people and injured nearly 100 was caused by a bomb.

The Nevsky Express traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg came off the tracks late at night on November 27. A number of people are still unaccounted for.

In a televised meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, the head of the FSB security service, Alexander Bortnikov, said that “criminal experts say that based on preliminary findings, a bomb equivalent to 7 seven kilograms of TNT was detonated.”

A spokesman for investigators, Vladimir Markin, said they had found elements of an explosive device at the crash site.

"A crater was discovered, 1.5 meters in diameter and 0.7-meters deep, as well as fragments of an explosive device," Markin said. "We can say with certainty that this was a terrorist act. Therefore an investigation has been opened on two counts -- terrorism and illegal arms trafficking."

"The investigation is in progress now; it will take a certain amount of time,” said Vladimir Yakunin, the head of Russia’s national railway company. “Our forces are working at full scale, we are waiting for the permission to evacuate the wagons that are still on the rails, the locomotive has been put back on the rails, and after we have finished the work around the crater, we will start evacuating the wagons that were most severely damaged."

Russian transport officials said trains were being diverted along alternate lines on one of the country's busiest routes.

The derailment was Russia's worst train crash in years.

In 2007, 30 people were injured when a train operating on the same line was derailed after an explosion damaged the rail track.

The men accused of the 2007 attack are suspected of having links to Chechen rebels.