RUSSIAN TRAIN DERAILMENT DEATH TOLL RISES TO 26, 4 MISSING

armradio.am
30.11.2009 15:34

Four people are still unaccounted for after the recent derailment
of a train due to a bomb blast, with the death toll rising to 26,
officials said on Monday.

The death of a hospitalized female passanger on Sunday brought the
official death toll to 26, Health Minister Tatyana Golikova said
on Monday.

Three cars of high-speed train No. 166 from Moscow to St. Petersburg
derailed Friday evening after an explosive device equivalent to 7 kg
(15 lbs) of TNT detonated on the railroad tracks. According to the
latest information, 26 people were killed and over 90 were left
injured. One body has yet to be identified.

"The whereabouts of four passengers of the derailed Nevsky Express
train have yet to be established," an emergencies ministry spokesman
said.

The incident is being investigated as a terrorist attack, and President
Dmitry Medvedev has demanded an "intensive" probe.

The attack occurred near the border of the Novgorod and Tver regions,
some 400 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of Moscow.

The train, with more than 600 passengers, is popular with business
people and government officials, and Boris Yevstratikov, the head
of the Russian State Reserves Agency, and Sergei Tarasov, a former
senator from St. Petersburg, were among the dead.

A blast derailed another Nevsky Express train, injuring 60 people,
with some 30 people hospitalized, in August 2007, RIA Novosti reports.

Armenian Pavel Derdzakyan’s name is listed among those killed in
Nevsky Express derailment. Derdzakyan was born in 1982, according to
Komsomolskaya Pravda.