Counterterrorism Rails
// Flange rails save an express train
A homemade bomb derailed an express train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg late Monday night and injured 60 people. The blast happened outside the city of Novgorod where the governor was dismissed ten days earlier as unable to handle an “acute criminal” situation in the region. Investigators believe that the terrorists had very limited knowledge of railroads, which saved lives of 252 passengers. Prosecutors, meanwhile, launched a terrorism investigation and issued composite sketches of two suspects in the bombing.
The Nevsky Express train derailed in Novgorod Region at 9.38 pm, local time, as it was traveling at 180 kph with 231 passengers and 21 train crew members on board. The bomb was placed about 30 meters ahead of a bridge over the Chernaya River. The explosion happened under the locomotive. The blast tore 75-centimer rail and sent it through the cabin’s floor, nearly missing the engineer and shooting up through the roof.
The locomotive went off the tracks but stayed on the railroad embankment thanks to flange rails on the bridge between the main rails. The train crossed the bridge, leaning on the flange rail before the train’s heaviest dining-car with refrigerating equipment and water supplies tipped onto its side. The train traveled a further 750 meters after the blast, tearing track in the area and overhead wiring.
The Nevsky Express’s passengers say that the train was jolting a lot during the incident, and the window panes were smashed by gravel. “I saw a pair of wheels under the car crash into the floor and actually pierce into our compartment,” Andrey Vlasov, a train conductor, said in an interview with Kommersant. “I scarcely had time to jump away.”
As soon as the train came to a standstill, the train crew and passengers rushed to the dining-car and nearby cars. They smashed the glass to help out those in the cars as the doors were locked. Several passengers on board were doctors and were able to provide first aid. Those in the dining-car were all covered in blood as they got cut by smashed crockery. “Vodka saved us s,” Andrey Vlasov recalls. “We would damp tissues in it and wipe each other’s faces and hands.” Andrey had his arms up to the elbow covered in blood.
Rescue teams, ambulances and police arrived no earlier than 40 minutes after the derailment, so passengers and train crew had to help evacuating people themselves. Once it was clear that everyone was save, the passengers and train crew had some vodka from the dining-car to celebrate the happy escape. “Quarter an hour after the derailment someone was telling jokes,” a guard says. “There’s nothing that can crush our people.”
The Nevsky Express’s passengers were sent to St. Petersburg on a local train which was linked to a diesel locomotive as the overhead wiring was damaged. Those injured were taken to hospitals in Malaya Vishera, Novgorod and St. Petersburg.
Transport officials, Russian Railways, prosecutors, police and Federal Security Service officers arrived at the scene Monday night and Tuesday morning. A helicopter which had flown in Alexander Bastrykin, a chief investigator at the Prosecutor General’s Office, landed near the crashed cars, damaging a $300,000 fly away satellite station of the Vesti television. Federal Security Service director and National Anti-Terrorism Committee head Nikolay Patrushev reported the situation to President Vladimir Putin who was on a trip in Tyva and ordered to take “extra anti-terrorism measures at vital establishments and facilities.” Trains were sent to St. Petersburg in bypass routes before service in the damaged zone was restored by Tuesday evening.
Prosecutors opened a terrorism probe into the attack. A team of 24 investigators and 60 criminal department officers examined local residents and workers of adjacent railroad stations to gather accounts of suspicious people who often had been seen hanging around the place. Investigators reported Tuesday night that they drew up composite sketches of two suspects based on witness accounts. Investigators also hope to find clues in mobile phone communication reports. The area of the crash is not densely populated as most of the territory is occupied by forests and swamps, which makes mobile contacts to trace in case terrorists did use mobile communication.
Investigators report that the bombing was caused by an improvised bomb with the power of over two kilograms of TNT. Earlier reports say that telephone cables running from the track to the forest were likely used to detonate a bomb under the train. However, no accumulator was found at the place where the terrorist was apparently hiding, which pointed to a conclusion that the bomb was powered by batteries placed nearby and smashed by the explosion. Investigators say that the perpetrator did not detonate the bomb. It is next to impossible to orchestrate a blast right under the cabin of the speeding locomotive. Therefore, the train blew itself up, experts believe, closing contacts of the bomb’s electrical circuit by the front wheels which were on the rail’s surface or a button under the rail. The far end of the wire did not have the circuit closer, but it had a safety device which could set off the bomb or put it on the stand-by. This is how the terrorist was letting other trains go by. Investigators also believe that the terrorists were planning to send the train into a narrow and deep ravine of the Chernaya River which goes as far as 30 meters down. The plot was scrapped as the terrorists did not know how the railroads work. For example, they did not take into account flange rails which Russia started to use back in the WWII times to protect trains from diversions. Secondly, the place was not right for the attack as a blast on the bridge would have caused a greater casualty toll. They also neglected high speed which helped the train to rush through the blast zone mechanically. On top of it, the perpetrators chose the wrong rail. The blast wave hurtled the train to the other track, not to the slope. These facts led investigators to a conclusion that the Nevsky Express was blasted by amateur terrorists.
A similar terrorist attack was foiled on June 12, 2005, when two extremists, Vladimir Vlasov and Mikhail Klevachev, were trying to derail a Grozny-Moscow train. The two men were charged this spring. Their lawyer Valery Prilepsky confirmed that the two crimes strongly resemble each other. The 2005 blast, as one, tore a rail of the similar length – 80 centimeters. Mr. Prilepsky suggested that the two attacks may have been perpetrated by the same criminal group whose members were never found. Lyubov Andreeva, former federal inspector in Novgorod Region and leader of the Movement for Worthy Leadership without Prusak [Novgorod Governor Mikhail Prusak] and Corruption told Kommersant that “there have never been any extremists in Malovishersky district – there are only mushroom collectors and berry gatherers.” However, Novgorod Region authorities and local legislature are considering a theory that the blast was plotted as revenge of local criminal groups on federal authorities which booted out Governor Mikhail Prusak and his entourage, opening the door to a major anti-crime purge. “What’s the point of revenge when it can’t change anything?” says Evgeny Bogdanov, a deputy at the local Duma and leader of Novgorod Region’s Union of Businessmen. “I think it was a mere chance that the bombing happened here. Novgorod is situated between Moscow and St. Petersburg, that’s it. If somebody’s wanted revenge, they would have blasted a Moscow-Novgorod train.”
Salam Yunusov, chair of the Vainakh Chechen-Ingush community in Novgorod Region, has been invited to the local branch of the Security Service for interrogation. Mr. Yunusov says he was not surprised by that. “They probably want to know if anyone in the community has any sort of information about the train blast,” he said. “But I don’t see the point in looking for a Chechen trace. I believe the blast is a deed of criminal groups which are now having a hard time under silovikis’ pressure.”
&The Nevsky Express
The 165/166 Nevsky Express high-speed passenger train launched service between Moscow and St. Petersburg on June 11, 2001, to become the second train of the series after the 1984 ER-200 express train operating on the same route. The Nevsky Express has ten first-class 61-4170 cars, five of which are business class, the crew car and the dining-car. The ChS-200 electric locomotive made by Skoda in the Czech Republic travels at an average speed of 145 kph with the top sped of 200 kph.
Passenger cars are divided into eight compartments with six seats in each. The total passenger capacity is 452. The train crew consists of 20 people. The train has a bar for business class passengers and two areas with TV sets for 10 and 38 seats, respectively. Business class cars are equipped with orthopedic chairs and video systems. The train was going to be equipped with Internet connection by the end of the year.
The Nevsky Express makes six trips a week. The train does not run from Moscow on Sunday and from St. Petersburg on Saturday. Travel time is four and a half hours. Ticket prices range from 2,787.6 rubles for a standard seat to 3,099.6 rubles for business class.
&Train Blasts in Russia
On May 30, 1991, a Moscow-Baku train was bombed outside Khasavyurt in Dagestan, killing 11 people. A train operating on the same route was blasted on July 31 near the station of Temirtau in Dagestan, claiming 16 lives. Court acquitted Armenian security service officers who had been accused of the crimes.
On March 1, 1993, a bomb planted in a car of the Kislovodsk-Baku train killed 13 and injured 12. The Russian Interior Ministry blamed “Chechen bandits” for the attack.
On April 13, 1994, a car of the Moscow-Baku train blew up at the Dagestanskie Ogni station outside the city of Derbent. Six people died and three were injured. The attack was not solved.
On April 22, 1994, a Tambov-St. Petersburg train was blasted. The last car caught fire. Passengers were evacuated. The incident took no lives.
On July 21, 1994, a Khabarovsk-Moscow passenger train derailed when the roadbed was bombed in Chita Region, injuring 20.
On August 16, 1995, a bomb went off in a conductor’s compartment shortly after the departure of the Kazan-Moscow train. The conductor got bad burns. The perpetrators of the attack were not found.
On August 12, 1996, a bomb went off under a Volgograd-Astrakhan train, killing one and injuring eight people.
On June 21, 1997, a blast in a Moscow-St. Petersburg train claimed lives of 5 people and injured 14 more.
On September 3, 2003, two bombs went off under a car of the Kislovodsk-Mineralnye Vody train, leaving 6 dead and 39 injured. The Court of the Stavropol Territory sentenced the suspected organizer of the attack, Igragim Israpilov, to 20 years in high-secured prison on June 29, 2004.
On October 20, 2003, a bomb outside the village of Dalako, Ingushetia blew up a Nazran-Moscow train which was carrying an emergency platoon of Kemerovo riot police. Two people were injured. A more powerful explosive device was later found near the site.
On December 5, 2003, a suicide bomber killed 47 people and wounded 233 on the Kislovodsk-Mineralnye Vody local train near the city of Essentuki. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayaev is believed to have been behind the attack.
On May 29, 2004, a blast derailed seven cars of the Moscow-Vladikavkaz train 30 kilometers away from North Ossetia’s capital of Vladikavkaz. No one was injured. The attack was not solved.
On June 10, 2004, a blast under a troop train in Naursky District in Chechnya left one man killed and two more injured. The blast was not solved.
On June 12, 2005, a Grozny-Moscow train was blown up 150 kilometers south of the Russian capital, derailing the locomotive and two next cars. No one was hurt. Perpetrators were found and sentenced to 18 and 19 years in prison on April 10, 2007.
&Black August
August is generally dubbed an unlucky month in Russia. The end of summer tends to be alarmingly full with terrorist attacks, man-made and natural disasters.
On August 19, 1991, a group of high-ranking Soviet officials set up the Emergency Situation Committee and attempted to take control of the country in the August Coup.
On August 14, 1992, Georgian troops invaded Abkhazia, starting the Georgian-Abkhazian war which involved a large number of Russians on the both sides.
On August 1, 1993, head of North Ossetia and Ingushetia’s interim administration Viktor Polyanichenko was assassinated.
On August 4, 1994, financier Sergey Mavrodi was arrested, collapsing the financial pyramid MMM and ruining millions of investors all over Russia. On August 7, water inrush in a storage pond in Bashkortostan left 29 people dead and hundreds more homeless.
On August 24, 1995, the Russian interbank loan market collapsed, closing down 28 Russian banks.
On August 6, 1995, militants captured Chechnya’s capital of Grozny, killing hundreds of Russian soldiers and local residents. On August 29, a Russian Tu-154 jet crashed on Spitsbergen, Norway, claming lives of 129 passengers and 12 crew members.
On August 18, 1997, St. Petersburg’s deputy mayor and head of the city property management committee Mikhail Manevich was shot dead.
On August 17, 1998, Russian officials defaulted on billion dollar debts.
On August 7, 1999, Chechen militants invaded Dagestan sparkling the second Chechen war.
On August 8, 2000, a bomb in an underground passage in Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow killed 13 people. On August 12, the Kursk submarine sank in the Barents Sea, claiming lives of 118 sailors on board. On August 27, Ostankino Tower in Moscow caught fire, leaving 3 people dead.
On August 19, 2001, a blast at the Kirovsky Market in Astrakhan killed 8 and injured 58.
On August 8, 2002, flood and waterspout claimed 59 lives in Novorossiysk. On August 19, a Mi-26 military helicopter was shot down, killing 127 soldiers.
On August 1, 2003, a suicide bomber attacked a military hospital in Mozdok, Chechnya, leaving 50 people dead. On August 30, the K-159 with 9 sailors on aboard sank in the Barents Sea.
On August 24, 2004, hijackers blew up Tu-134 and Tu-154 jets, killing 90. On August 31, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Rizhskaya metro station in Moscow, killing 10 people.
On August 4, 2005, the AS-28 mini-submarine failed to surface, sinking off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Berezovaya Bay. British and American specialists rescued all seven sailors.
On August 21, 2006, nationalists blasted the Cherkizovsky Market in Moscow, leaving 13 people dead. On August 22, a Russian Tu-154 got caught in a storm, crashing down and killing 170 people on board.
&Nevsky Express Passengers to Get Compensations
The Nevsky Express’s passengers had insurance payments included into their ticket’s price. “All passengers were insured with the mandatory private insurance by our company,” deputy director general at the ZhASO insurer, Evgeny Derevenskov told Kommersant. The insurance provides for compensations of up to 12,000 ruble per person. “Our employees have visited the victims and their families. We are explaining how to proceed with applications for compensations.” Several passengers also bought extra accident insurance policies. “Top payments for these policies are 250,000 rubles,” Evgeny Derevenskov says. “The amount of the compensation depends on how severe the sustained injuries are.” As of 5.45 pm, Tuesday, seven of 17 hospitalized passengers were reported to have accident insurances, according to ZhASO. The insurer will also have to pay Russian Railways for the damaged cars and locomotive. “The property was insured for the total of 70 million rubles,” ZhASO’s deputy head Tatyana Grishina says. “Russian Railways have already contacted us with insurance claims.”
Dmitry Marakulin, St. Petersburg; Sergey Mashkin, Olga Allenova, Musa Muradov and Yury Syun, Moscow
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 15, 2007
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