17 Die in Wreck of Soviet Train
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MOSCOW — A high-speed passenger train caught fire and derailed, killing 17 people on a trip from Leningrad to Moscow, Soviet media said today.
Fire engulfed the restaurant car and quickly spread to the entire line of sleeping cars Tuesday evening about midway between the Soviet Union’s two largest cities, the government evening newspaper Izvestia said.
It said that by noon today, 17 people were dead and 106 hospitalized. It said children were among the fatalities but it did not say how many.
The Moscow-Leningrad route is one of the busiest in the Soviet Union, and the trains are usually full.
The train was carrying 760 passengers when it crashed about 190 miles north of the capital, said Anatoly N. Sobin, director of the Leningrad railway station in Moscow.
He said 95 of the injured were hospitalized in two towns near the scene of the accident, Bologoye and Vyshny Volochok.
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