At least seven people were killed and 69 injured when a highway bridge collapsed onto railway tracks, derailing an approaching train in Russia’s Bryansk region that borders Ukraine, Russian authorities said early on Sunday.
Russia’s Railways had initially said on the Telegram messaging app that the bridge collapse was the result of an “illegal interference in the operation of transport,” but it has since removed the post.
Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of the Bryansk region, said on Telegram that 44 people were hospitalised. Three children were among those injured with one in serious condition, he added.
Russia’s ministry of emergency situations said on Telegram that efforts to find and rescue victims continued throughout the night, and that some 180 personnel were involved in the operation.
Among those killed was the locomotive driver, Russia’s state news agencies reported, citing medics.
Social media pictures and videos showed passengers trying to help others climb out of the train’s damaged carriages in the dark and firefighters looking for ways to reach passengers.
Russia’s Baza Telegram channel, which often publishes information from sources in the security services and law enforcement, reported, without providing evidence, that according to preliminary information, the bridge was blown up.
Reuters could not independently verify the Baza report. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Since the start of the war that Russia launched more than three years ago, there have been continued cross-border shelling, drone strikes, and covert raids from Ukraine into the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine.
The train was going from the town of Klimovo to Moscow, Russian Railways said. It collided with the collapsed bridge in the area of a federal highway in the Vygonichskyi district of the Bryansk region, Bogomaz said. The district lies some 100 km (62 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
