President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday ordered action to prevent terrorist attacks on Russia's railways following last Friday's deadly train derailment, which killed 26 people and injured scores of others, Xinhua reported.
The order "involves not only social, economic and security issues, but also sets a tight deadline for investigating terror attacks," Medvedev told a meeting with Russian security officials at the Vnukovo airport in the Moscow region.
The investigation into the train crash is "a matter of national importance," Medvedev said, stressing that the case "must be resolved and all necessary resources must be put into it."
Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, told the president that some 400 witnesses had already been questioned and preliminary results would be revealed in 10-12 days.
First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said the family of those dead would receive an allowance of 1.1 million rubles (about 37,900 U.S. dollars).
Zubkov confirmed that 26 people had been killed and 92 others had been hospitalized, with nobody accounted for.
The Nevsky Express, en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, was derailed Friday night some 400 km northwest of Moscow. Russian authorities have said the disaster, caused by a homemade bomb equivalent to 7 kg of TNT, was a terrorist attack.
Chechen rebels on Wednesday claimed responsibility for the incident, but Chechen police cast doubt on the Islamist militants' claims.