MOSCOW, July 17 (RIA Novosti) – The deadly derailment on the Moscow Metro this week could have been caused by an object under the train, and not a cable snap as suggested earlier, Kommersant business daily wrote Thursday, citing independent technical experts.
"The theory of the train possibly crashing because there was some object that came under its while it was moving has arisen," Kommersant wrote.
The new theory was announced Wednesday at the meeting with Deputy Mayor for Urban Development and Construction Marat Khusnullin, after experts found new fractures in the concrete between the rails some 50 meters away from where the train started going off the tracks.
On Wednesday, the Russian Investigative Committee said the train might have derailed due to the incorrect installation of a cable that snapped in a rail junction switch and detained rail engineer Valery Bashkatov and his aide, Yury Gordov.
No evidence has so far been found to substantiate the initial version, which said that the train stopped abruptly when a sudden short-term power outage triggered the train’s emergency brakes.
"This is definitely a serious violation, but it would not necessarily be the cause," said Konstantin Matveyev, head of one of Russia's largest transport construction companies Mosinzhproekt. He added that the cable snapped after the derailment, as the wheels lacked traces of the cable hitting it.
Another expert, Leonid Baranov, one of the leading scientists at the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers, supported the object under the train theory, saying it could have fallen from the train itself, which has happened before with the Rusich make of subway trains. The producer of the train denied this theory.
The accident took place on Tuesday during the morning rush hour as three cars of a train derailed inside a tunnel between the Molodezhnaya and Slavyansky Bulvar stations on the dark blue Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line. The derailment left 161 injured, according to Russian Health Ministry, and 23 dead. More than 120 people were hospitalized.
