Moscow-St. Petersburg train derailed by bomb
There is growing worries in Europe about the vulnerability of trains to terrorist attacks, and the latest example is the derailement by a bomb of a train in Russia; Russian toursim industry may suffer
We reported last week of hightened anxiety in France about intelligence pointing to terrorists planning to target French trains for attack. France is not the only country where there is a growing awareness of the vulnerability to attack of rail lines: The other day a bomb derailed a Russian train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, injuring sixty people, and prosecutors have launched a terrorism investigation. Security chiefs immediately pointed the finger at rebels from the Caucasus, but the London Times’s Helen Womack writes that in the tense political atmosphere ahead of forthcoming elections, other scenarios remain possible. The bomb was placed on the track before a bridge in the Novgorod region, 300 miles north of Moscow. The Nevsky Express, travelling yesterday evening at 80 mph, traveled over the bridge before its locomotive and 12 carriages derailed. Investigators said that there would have been more casualties if the train, carrying 251 passengers and 20 staff, had been going more slowly and had tipped over the 100ft bridge into the river below. Sergei Bednichenko, chief prosecutor for Russia’s North West district, said that the derailment was caused by a homemade explosive device.
The bombing will be bad news for Russia’s tourist industry, particularly as the rail journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg is one made by many foreign visitors. The trains are plush, tea is served from samovars, and in the first-class sleepers there is even caviar on the breakfast menu.
Russian news agency Interfax said that cables found at the Novgorod bomb site resembled those used to blow up a train heading from the Chechen capital, Grozny, to Moscow in 2005, when 42 people were injured. Russian nationalists, not Chechens, were subsequently convicted of that attack. The Echo of Moscow radio station said the cables were also similar to those used in a roadside bomb intended to kill market reformer Anatoly Chubais in 2005. It is a Russian nationalist rather than a Chechen rebel who is awaiting trial for that assassination attempt.
