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Three bombs exploded minutes apart in a high-speed passenger...

PARIS -- Three bombs exploded minutes apart in a high-speed passenger train bound for Paris and at Marseilles' main train station Saturday, killing at least four people and injuring 54 others, police said.

By late Saturday no group had claimed responsibility for the bombings, radio reports said.

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Police said two bombs exploded in a baggage area between two front passenger cars of the rapid TGV passenger train at 7:43 p.m. (1:43 p.m. EST) as it slowed down near Tain L'Hermitage on its Marseilles-Paris route, police said.

Police said two people were killed, four were gravely injured and 20 others were hurt in the blast outside Tain L' Hermitage, about 130 miles northeast of Marseilles.

A witness said the 'extremely strong blast' in the baggage area between the second and third cars, brought the train to a screeching halt, shattered the windows of buildings alongside the railway track and badly damaged the cars where the bomb went off.

About 15 minutes later, a second bomb planted in a suitcase exploded in the luggage room of Marseilles' St. Charles train station, killing two people, not four as police initally reported, and injured 30 - six of them seriously.

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The train station bomb blew a yard-wide crater in the floor of the luggage room, witnesses said.

Interior Minister Gaston Defferre, who also serves as mayor of Marseilles, went to the train station and denounced the 'cowardly attack aimed at innocent civilians.'

Transport Minister Charles Fiterman, whose department controls the high-speed trains, which are the objects of enormous pride in France, traveled from Paris to Marseilles to investigate the blasts, radio newscasts said.

But the explosions did little to dampen New Year's Eve celebrations in Paris, which was brimming with holiday celebrants.

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