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Seven people were killed and dozens injured after bridges collapsed in two separate Russian regions bordering Ukraine overnight, officials said on Sunday, with rail authorities blaming at least one incident on “illegal interference”.
In Russia’s Bryansk region, a road bridge collapsed on to a railway line late on Saturday, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow and killing seven people.
A separate rail bridge in the neighbouring Kursk region also collapsed overnight, derailing a freight train and injuring the driver, officials said.
Authorities did not say what caused the collapses, nor provide details on the incidents, but prosecutors said they had opened an investigation.
Videos posted on social media from the Bryansk region showed rescuers climbing over the mangled chassis of a train belonging to national operator Russian Railways, while screams could be heard in another video.
“There are seven dead as a result of the collapse of a bridge on to railway tracks,” said Alexander Bogomaz, the Bryansk region’s governor.
At least 66 others were injured, including three children, he said.
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, said Bogomaz, the Bryansk governor. The district lies 100km (62 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
Separately in the Kursk region a rail bridge collapsed, derailing a freight train that was going across. “Last night … in the Zheleznogorsk district, a bridge collapsed while a freight locomotive was passing. Part of the train fell on to the road below the bridge,” said the Kursk region governor, Alexander Khinshtein.
“One of the locomotive drivers suffered leg injuries and the entire crew was taken to hospital.”
There was no immediate comment from Russian investigators on the cause of either collapse. Moscow Railways, a state-owned railway operator, at first blamed the Bryansk crash on “illegal interference in the operation of transport” in a post online.
But it later appeared to have removed the reference to “illegal interference”.
Ukraine, which Russia has blamed for previous incidents, did not immediately comment.
An AFP reporter in central Moscow saw ambulances parked at Kievsky railway station awaiting the arrival of injured passengers. Russia’s emergency ministry said a team was on site in Bryansk while Russian Railways said it had sent repair trains.
Russia has been hit by dozens of sabotage attacks since Moscow launched its offensive against Ukraine in 2022, many targeting its vast railroad network. Kyiv says railroads are targeted because they transport troops and weaponry to the Ukraine war.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 there have been continued cross-border clashes including shelling, drone and missile strikes, and covert raids from Ukraine into the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
