ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The bomb attack on a Russian express train that killed 26 people last week could have affected another train, a local official said Wednesday.
Leonid Belyayev of the St. Petersburg emergencies department said the Nevsky Express was running a minute late that day or it too would have have hit by the bomb, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports.
"Things could have been much worse," Belyayev said. "At that moment, two trains were to pass by each other - the Nevsky Express and the ER-200."
The ER-200, enroute from Moscow to St. Petersburg, was partially derailed by a bomb that had been placed on the tracks. Twenty-six people were killed and more than 90 others injured.
A top investigator said the incident bore all the hallmarks of Islamist terrorism.
Alexander Bastrykin of the Investigation Committee told interviewers terrorists in the North Caucasus have used the same tactics.
