A bomb ripped through a commuter train near the war-wracked region of Chechnya on Friday, killing 36 people and wounding dozens of others in what authorities described as an act of terrorism.
More than 100 people were hospitalised and about 50 were treated at the scene for minor injuries.
The bomb was planted inside the train’s second car, said Major General Nikolai Lityuk of the Emergency Situations Ministry. Lityuk said authorities are investigating the possibility that suicide bombers orchestrated the attack.
The remains of a suspected suicide bomber were found at the site of the blast, news agency Itar-Tass reported.
”Next to body parts of the suicide bomber we found a bag in which there had apparently been an explosive device that was detonated in the train,” the FSB security agency’s press service told the news agency.
Authorities are treating the attack as an act of terrorism, said Vladimir Rudyak, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office in the region. He described the force of the blast at 10kg of TNT.
In Moscow, the prosecutor general’s office spokesperson, Natalia Vishnyakova, said that detectives were investigating many scenarios, including those tied with Sunday’s upcoming election for Russia’s lower House of Parliament.
Many of the dead were thrown from the train. Scores of others suffered injuries, said Emergency Ministry spokesperson Andrei Somishchenko.
The bombing occurred at about 8am (5am GMT), in a rush-hour attack that seemed calculated to kill and injure a maximum number of people. The train was travelling between the cities of Mineralnye Vody and Essentuki, Lityuk told reporters at a news conference.
The force of the explosion toppled the second car on to its side and fire fighters and ambulance workers struggled to pull victims from the mounds of shattered glass in the wreckage. A small fire broke out in the electrical wiring in the wreckage, hampering rescue efforts.
Hours after the blast, rescue workers continued to pull bodies from underneath the wreckage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the blast, saying it was aimed at destabilising the situation in the country on the eve of parliamentary elections, Russian news agencies reported.
Six people were killed in two blasts on the same train line in September. No group claimed responsibility for those attacks.
Russia has been hit recently by numerous bombings and suicide attacks, which the government usually blames on rebels from Chechnya. — Sapa-AP