"Express"-terror

New tragedy on the Oktyabrskaya Railway

The head of JSC Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, yesterday reported to President Medvedev on the complete restoration of traffic on the Oktyabrskaya Railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, which was interrupted as a result of the crash of the Nevsky Express passenger train that occurred on Friday evening on the border of the Tver and Novgorod regions. The number of victims of the tragedy was not precisely established yesterday. According to official data provided by the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Health and Social Development, 25 people died as a result of the disaster, including two high-ranking officials, and about 100 people were injured. However, the fate of at least 12 more train passengers who were in the carriages most damaged in the accident remained unclear. Experts have not ruled out that some of them were not injured and went home on their own, while others may have died, but their bodies have not yet been found. Rescuers, experts, investigators and operatives continued to work at the scene of the emergency until evening yesterday.

The SKP announced on Saturday afternoon after the first inspection of the crash site by investigators and experts that the disaster was not the result of a technical accident, but of a terrorist attack. According to official data, the cause of the derailment of the train was a homemade bomb planted on the tracks with a capacity of approximately 7 kg of TNT. In addition, on Saturday information appeared that during restoration work another mine was discovered on the tracks. According to the Investigative Committee, at the moment when the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, personally examined the scene of the emergency together with a group of investigators, a bang occurred nearby, which was identified as “an explosion of an unidentified explosive device.” The UPC said that “it was only by luck that no one was injured,” but did not provide further details about what exactly was the source of the cotton. Only the head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, explained that, according to his data, this was the second bomb planted by terrorists, which at first did not work, apparently due to dampness, and on Saturday partially exploded.

Yesterday, the intelligence services did not say who might be behind the sabotage, nor did they even make assumptions, limiting themselves to routine words that different versions were being considered. However, it is obvious that, first of all, the investigation considered the possibility of connecting the latest terrorist attack with almost exactly the same emergency that occurred with the Nevsky Express in August 2007. By all indications, and this was noted by Russian Railways, both accidents are almost identical - both occurred in the Novgorod region (the distance between the accident sites is about 100 km), in both cases, according to the investigation, mines were laid on the tracks, and the accidents are very similar. In 2007, the Nevsky Express completely derailed after an explosion. About 60 people were injured. The tragedy did not occur only due to chance - then all the cars stood on the tracks, and as a result, no one was killed or seriously injured.

On Saturday, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, said that several people were wanted on suspicion of involvement in the terrorist attack, and the characteristics of one of them were even announced - a red-haired man with a stocky build. One could only guess who exactly they were talking about, but these signs, as many observers noted, also fit the alleged organizer of the Nevsky Express bombing in 2007 , Pavel Kosolapov, who has long been wanted .

However, regardless of whether both bombings of the Nevsky Express were carried out by the same people or not, the political consequences are obvious. This explosion was the first large-scale terrorist attack in almost five years in central Russia - since the memorable terrorist attack in August-September 2004, when two passenger planes were blown up, explosions were carried out in Moscow and a school was seized in Beslan. Since then, the authorities and intelligence services have managed to deal, as expected, a significant blow to the leaders of the North Caucasian separatists, and the problem of a real terrorist threat has been localized and limited to several Caucasian republics. The only exception was the first bombing of the Nevsky Express in 2007 , but this was also considered by many in a broad sense not as a terrorist attack, but only an attempt to carry it out, since everything happened without a large-scale tragedy. The latest emergency may well be regarded as a new breakthrough in the “anti-terrorism defense” built by the authorities.

In addition, Friday's explosion quite clearly showed a very vulnerable section of it - railways in general and the Moscow-Petersburg line in particular, which, obviously, can be considered strategic, since St. Petersburg is now partially returning its capital functions, and many people from this city have recently years occupied responsible positions in the state system. The “special” status of the October Railway was also confirmed by the consequences of the latest explosion. Among the dead were former member of the Federation Council, chairman of the board of the newly created state company "Russian Highways" (GC "Avtodor") Sergei Tarasov and head of the Federal Agency for State Reserves ("Rosrezerv") Boris Evstratikov.

At the same time, it is obvious that by strengthening the security regime alone it is impossible to deprive terrorists of access to the railway tracks. It is impossible to place all railways, and even the Oktyabrskaya one, under round-the-clock security. Accordingly, the authorities are faced with a new difficult problem.

In the meantime, the country's leadership was primarily concerned with eliminating the consequences of the tragedy and providing assistance to the victims. On Friday evening, Dmitry Medvedev heard brief reports from the heads of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu, the Ministry of Health and Social Development Tatyana Golikova and the Ministry of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliev, instructing the special services to “prevent chaos.” On Saturday morning, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin created a commission “to eliminate the consequences of the Nevsky Express train accident and urgently provide assistance to the victims and families of the victims, as well as to restore the infrastructure damaged as a result of the disaster.” On Saturday and Sunday, the president held meetings with the heads of security and emergency departments.

According to JSC Russian Railways, the crash of the high-speed train Nevsky Express No. 166, traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, occurred at 21.34 on the border of the Tver and Novgorod regions on the Aleshinka-Uglovka section in the area of ​​285 and 286 km route (counted from St. Petersburg), approximately 360 km from Moscow, shortly after he passed Bologoye station. The speed of the train, which consisted of a locomotive and 14 cars, at the time of the explosion was, as has already been precisely established, about 200 km/h. According to preliminary data, there were about 680 people on the train - a total of 661 tickets were sold (it is already known that at least several people did not make it on this fateful flight), the train crew included 20 people.

According to preliminary investigation data and eyewitness accounts, the explosion thundered under the locomotive - residents of the village of Erzovka, near which the cars began to derail, allegedly heard two pops first - the first strong and the second weaker, after which there was a roar and grinding of metal.

According to experts, after the explosion, one of the locomotive's bogies came off the rails, and then, as they passed through the resulting gap, all the cars went off the rails. The driver immediately applied the emergency brake. At first, the train, moving by inertia and crushing sleepers and rails, stood on the embankment, but then the coupling of the last two cars - No. 1 and 2 (the numbering of the train cars from the “tail”) - was destroyed. Having “broken away” from the train, they flew off the embankment, turned over several times and, crashing into each other, flew several hundred meters, turning into a pile of twisted metal. The main train, by inertia, traveled along the tracks for about another kilometer, and by the time it stopped, two more cars - No. 3 and 4 - had completely derailed, while one of them tilted heavily, but still remained in the coupling and did not fall over. It was in the last two carriages that flew off the embankment that most of the dead and injured ended up.

As the surviving passengers said, everything in the destroyed carriages was swept away, there were almost no seats left in them, which were shattered into pieces. People, according to eyewitnesses, were completely “scattered across the carriages like matches.” As one of the train passengers, Alexey (he did not give his last name, citing the fact that the investigators forbade him to tell anything about what happened), who was traveling in the 7th car, told Vremya Novostey, before the train stopped, with people, bags and suitcases fell down the shelves. “Most of the people in our carriage escaped with abrasions and bruises. Without a guide, it became clear that something had happened. Almost everyone went outside and saw that several cars had derailed. Several people returned, and the rest went back along the tracks to help. It was a mess. I saw lacerations, obvious fractures and wounds that looked like they were caused by knives. Later they explained to me that the penetrating wounds and cuts were from the metal parts of the broken chairs. The passengers of the first carriage, who remained on their feet, retained their composure and had already organized the removal of the dead and wounded,” said Alexey.

As another passenger, Nikolai Kovarsky, who found himself in one of the cars separated from the train, said in his blog, no more than 30 seconds passed from the moment “when something went wrong” to a complete stop. “The lights immediately went out, after which the screams and moans of the wounded were heard throughout the carriage,” Mr. Kovarsky said. “In the first minutes after the disaster, the carriage was a mass of bodies, parts of the carriage and the remains of seats evenly scattered throughout the entire volume.” Most of the casualties were in the back of the car: all the bags and suitcases flew there, and people found themselves under the rubble. According to the blogger, people, surprisingly, quickly organized themselves, and there was no panic. “Several men in the carriage were not seriously injured - they organized primary aid. They knocked out the windows, began to throw out seats and parts of the structure, clearing the passage, and began to pull people out from under the rubble. I must say, the guys behaved absolutely heroically - in this chaos, without any external help, they were able to organize a fairly sane system for rescuing citizens in the conditions in which they were placed,” writes Nikolai Kovarsky.

Most of all, he said, he was struck by the design of the cars: “All the seats, with the exception of a few at the beginning of the car, could not withstand the impact, came off, flew around the cabin and were one of the main causes of injuries and deaths. Somehow they were attached flimsily to the massive bases. The remains of the fasteners - torn metal teeth, it looks like aluminum - also cut people.”

As eyewitnesses say, there were practically no first aid kits on the train: conductors began running from vestibule to vestibule, not saying anything, but simply asking who had medicines. The Nevsky Express administration, according to many passengers, was absolutely unprepared for an emergency. According to St. Petersburg resident Stanislav Aranovsky, who was traveling in the 11th carriage, the train crew, including the chief, failed to organize emergency assistance for the victims in the last three carriages, or even try to explain to the passengers of the remaining carriages what was happening. According to him, “it seems that there were no first aid kits necessary to provide even the simplest assistance on the train - everyone was asked if they had any medicines, at least the painkiller Nurofen.” “Sheets were used for dressings. It is unclear where only a little more than a dozen mattresses came from, on which the victims were laid. There weren’t even flashlights to look for the wounded,” said Mr. Aranovsky.

Some of the victims were carried to the building of an electrical substation, which was located nearby. Many people got off the stationary train and headed to the two torn-off carriages to help the wounded. The local firefighters who arrived, according to Mr. Aranovsky, “didn’t really help, they just stood there and reported to their superiors what was happening.” “I thought I heard the phrase: “We have two cars of meat.” The most important impression from what happened was anger because the train crew was confused and could not do anything for a long time. A lot of precious time was wasted when someone could have been saved. And the obvious lack of first aid kits seemed simply incredible - it cannot be that on such a train, especially after the explosion of the same Nevsky Express in 2007, no one drew conclusions and there was no supply of the necessary medicines or at least bandages,” Mr. Aranovsky is perplexed.

The first ambulances - doctors from a nearby correctional colony - arrived on the scene 20 minutes later and took away the especially seriously wounded. The doctors climbed into the cars that had been torn away from the train through the windows; the doors were locked, and only rescuers who arrived a couple of hours later could open them. Other cars with doctors arrived at the scene only an hour and a half after the disaster - the nearest large populated areas were 40 km from the crash site, and there was forest all around. People were given painkilling injections and sent by car to hospitals.

As Mr. Kovarsky notes, the work of the professionals - “taking into account the fact that they appeared on stage an hour and a half later - was generally pleasing.” “They worked quickly, they knew what to do. We arrived, in the opinion of many victims, too late, on the other hand, I don’t understand at all how it was possible to get there quickly - this is an impassable thicket... Also these holes. I went to the hospital with two heavy ones, how they screamed at every bump, and I had to drive through the forest for about thirty minutes, twice they had to inject morphine,” he said.

Passengers from other carriages, who escaped with only bruises and abrasions, were transferred to a passenger train that arrived from St. Petersburg, which took them to Uglovka station. Already there they were transferred to the Sapsan train, on which the survivors reached the northern capital.

Most of the wounded in the first hours were taken to the regional hospitals closest to the site of the tragedy in the Novgorod and Pskov regions. On Saturday and Sunday, several helicopters from the Ministry of Emergency Situations evacuated them to the central clinics of St. Petersburg and Moscow. In addition, to deliver the seriously wounded, an Il-76 Ministry of Emergency Situations aircraft with special medical equipment was used, which made several flights from the Khotilovo military airbase, located in the Bologoe region. According to the Ministry of Health and Social Development, a total of 92 victims of the disaster were hospitalized. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 104 people were taken to hospitals. The condition of 24 of them was assessed by doctors as serious. Among the victims, according to preliminary data, were six foreigners - one Italian, one Belgian, one Azerbaijani, two citizens of Ukraine and one Belarusian.

According to official data as of yesterday evening, 25 people died as a result of the Nevsky Express crash. On Saturday, the bodies of 24 of them were delivered to Tver, and yesterday it was announced that all of them had been identified. According to unofficial data from law enforcement agencies, among the dead were 18 residents of St. Petersburg, four Muscovites, one resident of the Moscow region and one resident of the city of Udomlya, Tver region. The identity of the other deceased has not been released. Relatives of the victims of the tragedy were taken to Tver on Saturday evening. Some of the 70 relatives and friends of those killed required emergency psychological help during identification, and one needed medical help.

On Saturday, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Health and Social Development officially confirmed that among the dead were the chairman of the board of Avtodor Group of Companies, Sergei Tarasov, and the head of Rosrezerv, Boris Evstratikov. Mr. Tarasov previously served as Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg, then was a member of the Federation Council, and was recently appointed to Rosavtodor. According to preliminary data, he was traveling in the first car from the end of the Nevsky Express. 51-year-old Boris Evstratikov headed Rosrezerv in April of this year, after the former head of the department, Alexander Grigoriev, died suddenly in December 2008. Before moving to Rosrezerv, Mr. Evstratikov briefly served as deputy head of Rosrybolovstvo, and before that he served in the KGB-FSB system. Also, as it turned out, a number of other employees of various government departments were traveling on this train, some of whom were injured.

The fate of at least 12 passengers of the Nevsky Express remained unknown yesterday. On Saturday, after checking the lists of people who bought tickets for the last two carriages, investigators and rescuers could not find many of them among the dead and injured. At first, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that 26 people were missing. At the same time, a variety of options were not excluded - these people could either die and their bodies had not yet been found, or survive and not suffer at all and leave the scene of the disaster on their own, or even miss the train. In this regard, rescuers and representatives of the investigation issued a special appeal to everyone who was traveling in the most damaged tail cars of the train to report their whereabouts.

The heads of the special services announced that the second explosion of the Nevsky Express was the result of a terrorist attack after the first inspection of the scene of the tragedy in daylight on Saturday. It was reported that at the scene of the composition a funnel with a diameter of about 1.5 meters and a depth of 50 cm was discovered. The experts rated the power that worked on the ways at 2-7 kg of TNT.

When operatives and heads of various departments gathered at the scene of the emergency, including the head of the UPC, Alexander Bastrykin, another explosive device worked in the area of ​​the train crash. The explosion rang about two in the afternoon during the inspection of the place of disaster in the immediate vicinity of the head of the UPP. Nearby, in addition to him, were the head of the Main Directorate of Forensics of the SCP, the head of the Moscow Interregional Investigation Department for Transport and other employees of the Investigative Committee. According to some data, the explosion thundered behind the support of the mains, according to others - on the second path. The second explosion, however, was more like a loud cotton or, as one of the Russian Railways officers said, “a very powerful firecracker”, and as a result, neither people nor infrastructure were injured. What kind of cotton it was, the investigators have yet to find out.

According to some sources, it could be the second bomb laid down by terrorists, who simply did not work due to dampness. However, it was still unknown whether it really was. No details were officially reported, and according to unofficial data, the elements of the mine were found, the only thing that the operatives discovered were the remains of the “some blue package”.

On Saturday, the operatives, as reported in the SCP and the Prosecutor General’s Office, found the components of the first explosive device, which worked under the locomotive of the Nevsky Express. In addition, according to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, at the scene of the incident they found some more evidence - "a lot of objects." True, what kind of evidence this is and whether it was just about the elements of explosives or not, he did not specify.

Meanwhile, the second explosion, although it did not cause any damage to anyone, greatly complicated the rescuers and repairmen of Russian Railways. Restoring work - I had to call sappers again, who once again examined the paths. As a result, they could completely restore movement only on Sunday.

According to official figures, in total, due to the train collapse, the traffic route was changed more than 70 passenger trains, in which there were about 30 thousand passengers. On average, the delay in trains was 8 hours, but some trains were delayed for 12-15 hours. Moreover, trains from Moscow to St. Petersburg were mainly in the usual mode, but the compositions headed in the opposite direction were forced to travel by bypass ways. On Saturday at six in the evening, the movement along the first path was opened, and the second way was opened yesterday afternoon. After that, the need for bypass routes disappeared.

The locomotive and the wagons established on the embankment were towed off the scene on Saturday. The last two, the train flew to the slope of the train yesterday remained on the spot - the experts continued their inspection. At the same time, the wagons, which were an awesome spectacle, were tightened by a camouflage net so as not to attract the attention of passengers of passing trains and local residents.

Meanwhile, according to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Rashid Nurgaliev, the investigation already had data confirming the involvement of several people in the crash of the train. As the minister said, "there is one citizen who now gives information, we check it and, above all, carry out a continuous wanted list." According to Mr. Nurgaliev, this certain “citizen” contacted law enforcement officers by phone and is currently trying to find it. In addition, as the minister said, "there are materials who say that there are several people who may have been involved in this crime."

He also spoke about the signs of one of the suspects - this is a man “about 40 years old, stocky physique, red -haired”, his photobot has already been compiled. It is noteworthy that Pavel Kosolapov, one of the accomplices of Chechen militants, who is suspected of undermining the Nevsky Express in 2007, fit under the voiced signs. The only discrepancy is age. Now Kosolapov should be about 30 years old. However, this difference is not fundamental, because many people look younger or older than their years. Everything else coincided - Kosolapov is also fundamental and red -haired. However, last night they stated that they have no certain information about the possible involvement of Kosolapov in the last undermining of the “Nevsky Express”.

In addition, police officers are looking for several more people who could be involved in the attack. According to the representative of the investigative-operational group, the inhabitants of several villages located near the scene of the accident claim that in the past few days they saw strangers. “Since the nearest settlements are extremely few, the appearance of an outsider is always striking,” said the representative of the UPP.

Yesterday, information appeared that the nationalist group "Combat 18" had already taken the responsibility for undermining the train. Such a statement was published on his blog by one of the activists of the movement against illegal immigration (DPNI). As it says, "the war that nationalists wage will affect each layman."

However, in the special services, so far this information was skeptical, regarding it as an attempt by nationalists to use a tragedy for their advertising. Firstly, it is difficult to see any visible motives for undermining the train from profashist groups-except that on the day of the attack, all Muslims celebrated Kurban-Bayram, but it is difficult to say what the passengers of the undermined train have to do with this. And secondly, it can hardly be assumed that members of this group have such resources and skills to carry out such a terrorist attack. The leader of the DPNI, Alexander Belov (Potkin), who called this message "nonsense" does not believe in their involvement.

Yesterday, the authorities announced the first decisions to assist the victims and relatives of those who died in the disaster. The Minister of Health and Social Development Tatyana Golikova reported yesterday that it was decided to allocate funds from the reserve fund of the government. According to her, the families of the victims will receive a one -time allowance of 300 thousand rubles, passengers who received severe injuries - 100 thousand, and those who were injured in a mild severity - 50 thousand Russian Railways intended to pay. Families of the dead are 500 thousand rubles, and the victims - 200 thousand each will be paid at the expense of the company's profit.

By the way, the last tragedy with the Nevsky Express is possible, it can raise a purely technical issue in the future - about the emergency safety of trains. Obviously, the causes of the death and injuries of passengers of the train will still be carefully analyzed. However, many eyewitnesses immediately noted that many passengers suffered, including from the fragments of passenger chairs in broken wagons, which, during the crash, could not stand the blow and fell off the fasteners, crippling people.

It is worth noting that in 1988, when the Aurora passenger train crashed in the Tver region, many also suffered from the metal parts of the seats. Then the experts concluded that such designs are not strong and dangerous in emergency situations. Then in high -speed trains it was forbidden to use folding chairs. Aurora and other trains converted on a reserved seat. But then, apparently, this was forgotten, and in new trains, including the Nevsky Express, they began to put folding chairs again.

Whether the Official mourning will be announced in connection with the Nevsky Express disaster in the country, so far it remains not clear - no messages were received on this subject. However, the leadership of the leading Russian television channels announced the abolition in the coming days of many entertainment programs. Yesterday, from the minute of silence, in memory of the victims of the tragedy, all matches of the last round of the Russian football championship began.

The cross-country passenger train running along the October Railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg “Nevsky Express” No. 165/166 was commissioned in 2001. Travel time on schedule is four and a half hours. The train consists of 13 wagons, a restaurant car and a locomotive. The train includes wagons with sedentary places, coupe and St. Unlike the ER200 electric train, in which all wagons (except for the head) are motor, Nevsky Express pulls an electric locomotive. Wagons for the train are designed and built at the Tver Car-Building Plant, the electric locomotive of the Czech Republic-the ChS-200-is able to develop speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour.

Sergey Minenko, Mikhail Telekhov, Alexey Grishin