Moscow - Investigators searching the wreckage of the Russian train derailed by a bomb attack said on Sunday they feared the death toll could rise dramatically as they recover more body parts. The official death toll currently stands at 25, with 26 passengers unaccounted for from the total of 661 thought to be travelling on the high-speed Moscow to St Petersberg express on Friday night.
That would bring the death toll to over 50, Health Minister Tatyana Golikova told the Interfax news agency.
Of the 100 injured, six were foreigners, she added. They included Belgians and Italians who had been on board the Nevsky Express train when a bomb seemingly planted by the tracks was detonated.
However, rail travel between Moscow and St Petersburg resumed on Sunday. Passenger services on Russia's busiest rail link re-started during the morning, state-run national railways said on its website.
A right-wing nationalist group claimed responsibility for planting the bomb, but those behind the attack were believed to be Chechen rebels or criminals.
"We are indeed talking about a terrorist attack," a spokesman for the investigating committee, Vladimir Markin, told the Russian news agency Interfax.
The bomb contained the equivalent of 7 kilograms of TNT, investigations showed. A second explosion occurred during rescue operations on Saturday, but no one was injured.
Reports cited passengers as saying how they had heard a loud bang just before the derailment as the train was speeding along at 200 kilometres per hour.
In the aftermath, survivors criticised the rescue operations. They said they had to wait for more than an hour until doctors arrived and they were given little information about the situation.
The Nevsky Express is popular with businessmen and tourists. It was the target of an attack in August 2007 when 60 people were injured.
Two Chechens were arrested for that attack, which was carried out with the help of a disgruntled former Russian soldier.
Extremists from conflict regions in the northern Caucasus have been blamed for a string of attacks on civilian targets in Russia.
