Published on Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 15:59 | Source : Reuters
Updated at Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 16:05
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Russian train crash kills 39, attack suspected
At least 39 people were killed and nearly 100 injured when a Russian express train came off the rails late on Friday in what the head of the national railway company said could have been a bomb attack.
President Dmitry Medvedev has been informed about the derailment which has delayed 27,000 people as transport officials tried to divert trains along smaller lines.
Interfax news agency said a one-metre (3-feet) wide crater had been found next to the railway track, though Reuters reporters at the scene did not see one.
A railway official who asked not to be named said a witness had reported hearing a loud bang, though another passenger told reporters in St Petersburg there had been no blast.
After a blast on August 13, 2007 that derailed the Nevsky Express and injured at least 30 people, prosecutors arrested two residents of Ingushetia and charged them with helping to carry out the attack.
Russian prosecutors said they believed ex-soldier Pavel Kosolapov, a former associate of the late Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, was the mastermind behind the blast. Kosolapov is still on the run.
In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, "We are deeply saddened by the terrible loss of life and injuries resulting from the reported derailment of a train between Moscow and Saint Petersburg."
