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15 killed, over 160 injured as Moscow Metro carriages derail in rush hour (UPDATE 2)

Other News Materials 15 July 2014 15:49 (UTC +04:00)
15 people have been killed and over 160 injured as several subway cars derailed on the Moscow Metro on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya dark blue Metro line on Tuesday morning
15 killed, over 160 injured as Moscow Metro carriages derail in rush hour (UPDATE 2)

(Details added - first version posted at 11:53)

15 people have been killed and over 160 injured as several subway cars derailed on the Moscow Metro on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya dark blue Metro line on Tuesday morning, RT reported.

"One hundred and twenty people have sought medical help, 106 were taken to hospital. About a half of them are seriously injured," Golukhov told ITAR-TASS.

Media reports have emerged of 16 people being dead. Those have not yet been officially confirmed.

The driver of the derailed train, who was earlier reported dead, is actually alive and being treated in hospital, Moscow authorities say, according to RIA Novosti.

The accident happened during the morning rush hour when the train was packed with passengers.

The first carriage of the train sustained most of the damage, according to an eyewitness of the accident who spoke to RT. Ivan, said he was in the second car when the train suddenly braked and the lights went off.

"I was tossed up in the air," the young man says. "There was blood on the floor, heads bruised, arms broken. Panic broke out."

Ivan also says after the train derailed there was a flash and then the tunnel was filled with thick smoke.

"The car was badly damaged. We started to get out. We saw a door in the tunnel's wall. Men eventually broke that door and we saw workers, constructing a parallel tunnel. They helped us to get out."

An eyewitness, who spoke to LifeNews, was in the fifth carriage and says they had to wait for 30 minutes before the evacuation started.

"So as we got out, we proceeded to march on foot, probably for two or three minutes - along the tunnel with cables underneath. The train driver had told us right away to stick to the right side, so we did. No sooner had we got to the surface than we realized it was a full-blown emergency."

Andrey Zenin, another survivor in the accident, says he helped extinguish the fire in one of the carriages and he also was among the volunteers who helped to get the injured out of the tunnel.

"There was a man next to me and his head had been smashed by the handrail and he was unconscious," Zenin told RT. "Some people had broken ribs and one person's arm was injured. All in all, people were hysterical."

Law enforcement officials told that three train cars had derailed, "but not overturned."

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has expressed condolences to the families of the dead and promised that the federal government will help in the post-accident clean-up.

Moscow authorities do not consider the cause the accident in the Metro could have been a terrorist act, according to Maksim Liskutov, the head of the transport department in the Moscow government, cited by Dozhd TV channel.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has promised to take tough measures against those responsible for the accident after visiting the crash site.

"I'm sure a criminal case should be launched into the accident, an investigation conducted and the toughest measures taken," Sobyanin told journalists, after he visited a hospital where the injured had been taken.

Some passengers could still be at the site of the accident, according to Maksim Liskutov, Moscow's deputy mayor.

Attempts are being made to try and evacuate the stricken passengers, who are stuck in a tunnel between Park Pobedy and Slavyansky Bulvar stations, in the west of Moscow.

News of the derailment was preceded by reports of smoke detected on the dark blue line of the Moscow Metro. Later, Moscow's emergencies agency denied reports of smoke and said a sudden failure in the electricity supply to a conductor rail could have caused the accident.

A failure in the power supply led to a false alarm going off. The alarm was a signal to the train driver to immediately stop the train. The sudden braking led to the derailment of several carriages.

Press service says the train derailed because it had to brake too suddenly.

"At 8:39am Moscow time [04:39 GMT] on a stretch between stations of Park Pobedy [Victory Park] and Slavyansky Bulvar there was abrupt deceleration of a train," Moscow emergencies agency 's press service employee told RT.

Sixty-six buses, 40 ambulances and eight helicopters have been deployed by rescuers for evacuations. Fifty people have already reportedly been evacuated from Slavyansky Bulvar and 200 from Park Pobedy.

The Investigative Committee (IC) has launched a criminal case over 'violation of transportation security demands', according to interim head of the Moscow's Western District Department of the IC, Roman Syomushkin.

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