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TRAUMATIZED RUSSIANS VIEW THEIR DEAD AFTER LUXURY TRAIN BOMBING

Workers inspect a damaged railway carriage not far from the village of Uglovka in
Russia’s Novgorod region on November 28, as it traveled between Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Rescue workers searched for bodies and investigators opened a terrorism probe after a Russian passenger train derailed overnight, killing 25 people
and injuring 92 more.

BY By ELLEN BARRY and CLIFFORD J. LEVY
The New York Times

TVER, Russia — All day on Sunday, families from Moscow and St. Petersburg arrived at the salmon-colored morgue here where their dead had been laid out. They clutched one another’s hands on the way in, and on the way out they looked different, whether from relief or dread, it was not always clear.

Valentina G. Dybina went to identify her 41-year-old cousin, one of 25 people killed in the bombing of a luxury train on Friday night, but she was so flustered by the bodies and body fragments shown to her that she walked out, planning to return later in the day when the number of corpses would be smaller.

Passengers arrived at the Moskovsky train station in St. Petersburg after
the derailment. People on the train, called the Nevsky Express,
perhaps the most illustrious in Russia,
reported a scene of panic and devastation.

As he left the building, Renat Urusov, 24, said his brother-in-law’s body was intact — but somehow, after the violence of the train wreck, his face was gone.

“He took the train because he was afraid of flying,” said Mr. Urusov, who had driven some 500 miles trying to locate his brother-in-law in rural hospitals.

“The man who was sitting next to him stood up and walked away on his own.”

Relatives of people killed in the bombing of a train on Friday arrived at a hospital
in Tver on Sunday to view the remains.

A day after the authorities determined that the crash was caused by a homemade bomb on the tracks, relatives had identified the bodies of nearly all the victims at the morgue in Tver, a regional capital midway between Moscow and the crash site.

Across the country on Sunday, in churches, sports stadiums and other public places, Russians prayed and held moments of silence for the victims.

There were reports of people canceling travel plans over fears of more attacks, but in a sermon in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill I, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, urged the public not to be intimidated by terrorists.

“Russia is a peaceful country,” he said, “but when the hand of the enemy is raised up against our way of life, we will ably protect our fellow citizens.”

Federal investigators offered no indication that they had strong leads about who had struck the train, the Nevsky Express, one of the most famous in Russia.

Russia was subjected to a wave of terrorist attacks earlier in the decade carried out by separatists from the Muslim region of Chechnya in the Caucasus Mountains. But those had largely abated in recent years outside the Caucasus.

Still, it seemed clear that the authorities were focusing on either Muslim extremists or Russian ultranationalists, who have also been suspected in violence in recent years.

The federal interior minister, Rashid G. Nurgaliyev, said those responsible had left evidence at the scene that had been recovered, though he did not give details.

Mr. Nurgaliyev said residents in the rural villages near the site of the crash, about 200 miles northwest of Moscow, had noticed some unfamiliar people in recent days, and officials were trying to put together sketches of them.

“There are several people who could be involved in this crime,” he said in a television interview. One of them, he said, is a “stocky-built man of more than 40 years old, with red hair.”

While the investigation at the site was continuing, rail service was fully restored on Sunday on the route between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Russian television showed for the first time images from inside sections of the 14-car train that were hit directly by the bomb’s impact.

The interiors were devastated, with airline-style chairs toppled and splattered with blood.

Personal items — wallets, cosmetics, children’s books — were strewn around.

In the hours after the crash, officials said the death toll was as high as 40 people, but on Sunday they said the figure was 25, out of more than 650 passengers.

Another 130 were wounded, officials said, adding that 92 people were hospitalized, with 21 in serious condition.

In Tver, about 100 miles from Moscow, Marina Grishko, a local official in charge of burial services, said there were many parts and fragments of bodies in the morgue, including a hand with rings.

“It’s emotionally very difficult, even for professionals who have been doing this for many years,” Ms. Grishko said.

As for the families, she added, “The grief is so great that you don’t want to live.”

Families of victims were given free food and lodging in Tver, and emergency workers escorted them as they walked into the morgue.

Elena V. Khokhlova, deputy director for social services for the region, said psychologists and social workers were so concerned about bereaved relatives that they made regular visits to their hotel rooms — in some cases, every hour through the night.

One man, Ms. Khokhlova said, was so distraught that he wrecked his room.

“Everyone is focused on their own grief,” she said. “This was a prestigious train. These people were socially well-integrated. They weren’t bums who could die on the street without anyone noticing.”

As night fell, family members piled into cars to start the trip home; a private train was commissioned to bring the last of them back to St. Petersburg.

Standing outside the morgue in the bitter cold wind, Galina Y. Storozhenko, 69, watched emergency workers load a coffin covered in plum-colored velvet into the back of a van.

“A 38-year-old woman dying, does that seem normal?” said Ms. Storozhenko, whose friends had come to identify their niece, a mother of two. “Can you imagine what they mean when they say fragments of people? Hands, feet? That there is nothing left?”

See Related: ISLAMIST GROUP CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR RUSSIAN PASSENGER TRAIN BOMBING