Moscow bombing kills 39

MOSCOW -- An explosion ripped through a packed subway train early yesterday, killing at least 39 passengers, wounding more than 130, and terrifying hundreds more rush-hour commuters. Police called the blast a "terrorist act" and President Vladimir Putin blamed it on separatist rebels from Chechnya.

Shocked survivors said the explosion blew out windows and doors, mangled the train's walls, and ignited a fire. They described panicked passengers piling out of the stricken train into a darkened, smoke-filled tunnel strewn with shards of glass and twisted metal, groping their way toward safety as they stepped over the bloodied bodies of victims scattered along the rails.

As police stepped up security across the Russian capital, Putin accused Aslan Maskhadov, fugitive leader of independence-seeking Chechens, of ordering the bombing in an effort to undermine next month's presidential poll. Putin, heavily favored to win reelection on March 14, ruled out talks with Maskhadov.

"Russia doesn't conduct negotiations with terrorists -- it destroys them," Putin said. Chechen rebels have fought Russia to a standstill in their Caucasus homeland for nearly a decade, and separatist field commanders have claimed responsibility for some of the dozen bombings that have killed more than 200 people across Russia since December 2002.

A spokesman for Maskhadov condemned yesterday's bombing and denied the separatists were involved. But Putin, who came to power in 2000 vowing to crush the rebels, was unmoved.

"We know for certain that Maskhadov and his bandits are linked to this terrorism," the Russian leader said.

Police at first said the explosion was a suicide bombing. But later, officials said the bomb could have been planted on the train in a suitcase or backpack.

Moscow's health department said 21 of the wounded were in critical condition, suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, broken limbs, and burns.

The eight-car train, carrying more than 1,000 passengers, was accelerating through a tunnel toward Moscow's busy Paveletskaya Station when the bomb detonated in the crowded second car shortly after 8:30 a.m.

"There was a popping sound, and at once the windows were shattered and small bits of glass flew around," Viktoria Sidorova, 25, a passenger in the fourth car of the train, recalled from her bed at Moscow's First City Hospital, where she was recuperating from numerous lacerations to her face. "Then smoke started coming in. There was a smell of something burning, and that white smoke."

"At first there was panic, people were falling down, one woman even tried to climb out of the window," Sidorova said.

Later, Sidorova said, after subway operators turned off the high-voltage lines that power the trains and opened the doors, people stumbled through the dark tunnel toward Paveletskaya station, trying to help those who had trouble walking. The people with the most serious injuries were left lying where they fell, she said.

"It was really hard to get past the second car. It was all mangled. The metal was bent. It was hard to see what was inside because it was dark, but people were lying there and moaning," she said. "I saw some bodies looking so bad I can't even describe them."

Body parts lay scattered along a stretch of the railway, said Valery Draganov, who represents the district in the Russian parliament. Inspecting the badly damaged train with rescue workers, Draganov saw soot-covered dead bodies still sitting side by side in their seats.

"You can hardly imagine what we saw there," he told Ekho Moskvy radio.

Outside Paveletskaya station, blood-soaked stretchers cluttered the street, and fleets of ambulances and other emergency vehicles rushed to and fro, as helicopters hovered overhead.

President Bush, who has enjoyed Putin's backing in the US war on terror, telephoned Putin to offer his condolences. A Kremlin statement said the two leaders agreed to "step up joint efforts to oppose the terrorist threat."

Yesterday's death toll was the worst in Moscow from a bombing since Putin ordered Russian troops, who had withdrawn from Chechnya in defeat in 1996, back into the separatist republic in 1999.

Less than two months ago, a woman blew up herself and five bystanders across the street from the Kremlin. Shamil Basayev, a rebel commander, has claimed he has trained a battalion of female suicide bombers Russians call "black widows."

Police yesterday said they were looking for a round-faced man, between the age of 40 and 45, with the dark features Russians generally associate with people from the Caucasus. The man, accompanied by two women, had approached an employee at the Avtozavodskaya station shortly before the explosion, swearing and saying "you'll have a party on your hands," police said.

Deputy Mayor Valery Shantsev of Moscow later said investigators had not found the shrapnel that suicide bombers in Russia usually pack into their explosives. He said the bomb might have gone off by mistake before the alleged assailants reached their intended destination.

Police fanned out among Moscow's 160 subway stations. At Paveletskaya station, a sign warned commuters that the line was "closed for technical reasons." Outside the entrance to the station, several burly officers chain-smoked cigarettes but did not stop or search anyone carrying bags.

Muscovites, 2 million of whom commute to work on public transportation each day, expressed dismay that the Kremlin's campaign in Chechnya may have once again brought tragedy to Moscow.

"What are our country and government and police going to do now that someone is blowing up crowded subway cars?" said Ilya Blokhin, 31, a doctor who was riding several cars away from the blast. Putin's tough stance against the rebels following a series of apartment block bombings that killed 300 people in Moscow and other cities in 1999 helped him get elected a few months later.

Although Putin's soaring approval rating never drops below 70 percent, even following suicide bombings, the Russian leader said yesterday that he felt political opponents could use continued attacks "to put pressure on the head of state" before next month's election.