Moscow - Russian officials investigating a bomb attack on the country's most vital rail connection on Tuesday said they were seeking information on two suspects seen on the rail line by passengers prior to the blast, news agency Interfax reported citing Interior Ministry officials. Experts had drawn up sketches of the suspects based on eyewitness descriptions.
The remote-detonated blast late Monday blew the Moscow-St Petersburg Nevsky Express, one of Russia's most modern trains, off the tracks as it travelled at around 180 kilometres an hour with 251 people on board.
Investigators said remains of a homemade bomb with the force of two kilos of TNT were found. The blast left a metre-and-a-half-deep crater at the Novograd Veliki site near Malaya Vishera 500 kilometres north of Moscow, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
At least 60 people were reported injured, 20 of them seriously, including three in critical condition. Children and an Italian were among the passengers brought to hospital, Echo Moskvy radio reported.
"It was a miracle no one was killed," one passenger told reporters, while a conductor said people were "counting their final seconds." The train driver said he heard a loud bang just before the derailment.
Officials assumed it was a terrorist attack, with a spokesman for the commission probing it saying: "It appears the terrorists wanted to cause the maximum amount of damage."
Alexander Bastrykin, deputy public prosecutor in the region, told Interfax news agency that everything pointed to a carefully-planned attack, although "we can't rule out other causes."
The track, 800 metres of which was destroyed in the blast, remained closed off Tuesday evening with trains between Moscow and St Petersburg diverted.
The attack happened as Russia, China and four former Central Asian Soviet republics were taking part in anti-terrorist drills in the southern Ural region.
The leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) plan to meet in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on Thursday to discuss ways of fighting terrorism.
A package of extra measures aimed at preventing terrorism and dealing with possible emergencies was now necessary, the leader of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Nikolai Patrushev was cited by Russian news agencies as saying.
It could not be allowed that terrorists or extremist acts destabilize the situation in the country, said Patrushev, who also heads the National Anti-Terrorism Committee.
Chechen rebels and affiliated extremists from the Caucusus region have carried out frequent attacks on the civilian population in Russia.
Most recently in August 2006, 11 people were killed and 45 wounded in a bomb attack on a busy Moscow market.
