MOSCOW, June 12 (RIA Novosti) - An explosion hit a passenger train traveling from the Chechen administrative center of Grozny to Moscow 158 km from the capital, injuring 15, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said. At 7.00 a.m. Moscow time an explosion occurred in front of the locomotive that carried 350 passengers to Moscow. The blast made the driver put the train to an immediate halt.The driver saw a crater near the sixth carriage. Locomotive's windows were shattered but the train did not break up," OAO RZD, the state railways operator, said.
The crater is two meters in diameter and one meter in depth, with electric wires laid from it to the forest, an RZD official said. The explosion has smashed five feet of rails and 150 meters of railway electric cables, he added.
A boy with a broken leg and a girl with a scalded hand were hospitalized; other 13 who were injured were rendered medical aid on site. All passengers were sent to Moscow by an additional train two hours after the emergency.
The Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived at the scene along with a rescue force of 85 men and 17 vehicles.
