Russian Officials Probe Fatal Train Derailment

As Russian investigators probe the apparent Friday evening bombing of a high-speed express train from Moscow to S. Petersburg, Jewish community leaders have joined concerned families and citizens in awaiting an official list of casualties.

Rabbi Mendel Pewzner, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary and chief rabbi of S. Petersburg, said Sunday that he was in contact with government officials.

“We are all praying for the victims and their families,” he said.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian state prosecutor’s office told CNN that 26 people perished in the explosion and derailment near the town of Uglovka. More than 100 people were injured. The government, added Markin, is confident the attack was a planned act of terror after police discovered the remains of an improvised explosive device near the tracks.

“Indeed, this was a terrorist attack,” the Interfax news agency quoted Markin as saying during a press conference.

More than 600 passengers were on the 14-car Nevsky Express when the last three carriages veered off the tracks, The Associated Press reported. The town of Uglovka, not far from the border of Novgorod and Tver provinces, sits in a rural area 250 miles northwest of Moscow and 150 miles southeast of S. Petersburg.

“It was immensely scary,” passenger Vitaly Rafikov told Channel One state television. “I think it was an act of terrorism because there was a bang.”