Russia's health minister said on Saturday the derailment of a train going from Moscow to St. Petersburg late on Friday left 26 people dead, with other officials putting the toll at 25 to 30 people.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office said earlier on Saturday that 30 passengers had been killed, while the emergencies ministry confirmed 25 deaths.
"As of now, we have information that 26 people were killed," Tatyana Golikova said adding that another 18 people were missing.
The latest reports said Boris Yevstratikov, the head of the Russian State Reserves Agency, was also killed, an agency source told RIA Novosti, though no official confirmation has yet been made.
Three cars of the Nevsky Express went off the track on Friday evening halfway between Russia's two largest cities near the town of Bologoye on the border between the Tver and Novgorod regions.
The 14-car train carried 653 passengers and 29 railroad employees. Some passengers said they had heard a loud bang and some also saw a crater under the train.
"There was a bang. The last two cars almost fell apart. I've seen such things only in movies," passenger Alexander said.
"An unidentified explosive activated by unknown people went off," Vladimir Yakunin, president of railroad monopoly Russian Railways (RZD), said.
He cited "objective information" that the derailment could have been caused by a terror attack.
Yakunin also said the scenario for the explosion reminded him of another derailment that occurred on the same route in 2007 involving a similar train. A blast derailed another Nevsky Express train, injuring 60 people, with some 30 people hospitalized, in August 2007.
The health minister said RZD would pay the families of those killed in Friday's derailment 500,000 rubles ($16,700) as compensation each, and every injured passenger would be eligible for a 100, 000 ruble ($3,350) compensation.
"I think assistance to the families of those killed and to those injured will not be confined to these payments alone," Golikova said
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has instructed Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu to take all necessary measures to extend assistance to those affected. He also instructed Federal Security Service (FSB) director Alexander Bortnikov and Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to "hold all necessary investigative activities."
Vladimir Markin, the official spokesman for the Investigative Committee at the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, said fragments of an explosives had been found at the scene. RZD said rail traffic had been blocked again over yet another minor explosion.
Some 27,000 passengers remain stranded over the derailment which caused 60 train delays by at least eight hours.
It takes Nevsky Express trains that can travel at 200 kilometers per hour (124 mph) some four hours to travel about 650 kilometers from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti)
