Woman dies after bomb derails train

A bomb exploded beneath a train in Russia’s violence-plagued Dagestan region today, killing one person and injuring four others, police said.

The explosive device went off around 5.30am (2.30am Irish time) under the first coach of the train as it headed to the regional capital, Makhachkala, from the northwestern town of Khasavyurt, said a railway spokesman.

The train coach was derailed and a crater was left in the track bed.

A woman who was among five people injured died on the way to a hospital. One of the injured was a transport policeman on the train.

State-run Rossiya television showed footage of the damaged train coach, its interior a jumble of battered wooden benches and torn ceiling panels.

Officials were trying to determine the strength of the bomb, which was apparently set off by remote control, about six miles from Khasavyurt.

Dagestan, which borders war-ravaged Chechnya, has been plagued by increasing violence believed connected with insurgents and criminal gangs. The number of terrorist attacks in the region has more than doubled this year to 70, a Russian human rights group said last week.

Many of the recent attacks in Dagestan have targeted police or government officials. Among those killed in the violence were the deputy interior minister, the nationalities minister and other officials from the multiethnic, mostly Muslim republic.

President Vladimir Putin visited Dagestan a week ago, a sign of Kremlin concern over increasing violence in regions surrounding Chechnya.

Also today, police said two powerful explosive devices were found in a car in the southern city of Kaspiisk. Regional Interior Ministry spokesman Angela Martirosova said police found the car on Saturday evening and engineers were working to defuse the devices, which consisted of artillery shells strapped together with grenades.

She said authorities also found in the car automatic rifles, bullet cartridges, plastic explosives and other materials.