Twenty people were injured Wednesday in the derailment of several carriages of a train carrying more than 200 passengers in Russia’s Far North, local authorities announced.
This train connected the city of Vorkuta, beyond the Arctic Circle, and the port of Novorossiïsk, on the Black Sea in the south of the country. It derailed near the town of Inta, in the Komi Republic, a sparsely populated territory with a harsh climate.
“There were 215 passengers on the train. Twenty people were injured, three of whom are in serious condition,” the leader of the Komi Republic, Vladimir Uiba, said on Telegram.
According to him, only “the tail” of the train came off the rails.
The national railway company, RZD, indicated on Telegram that, according to initial information, the cause of the derailment was “washout by water following heavy precipitation”.
Transport accidents are not uncommon in Russia, especially in remote and isolated regions of this vast country, which has one of the most extensive railway networks in the world.
Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, several sabotage of railway lines have taken place in Russia and attributed by the authorities to Ukrainian agents or supporters of kyiv, the rail being one of the elements of the logistics of Russian army.
Several people were also sentenced to heavy sentences for damaging electrical infrastructure linked to train transport.
