Bomb Rips Peruvian Tourist Train; 7 Die

A bomb exploded today on a tourist train as it prepared to depart for the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, killing seven people and injuring at least 28, officials said. The injured included seven Americans.

Among the dead were Brazilians, Argentines and two Peruvians, said Emma Zamalloa, secretary of the Cuzco station manager.

The train was believed to be carrying some delegates from the congress of Socialist International that ended in the Peruvian capital Monday.

U.S. Embassy officials in Lima said that they had no reports of Americans being killed but that seven had been wounded. The officials would not give the names of the injured.

Zamalloa said six people were killed and 35 wounded. Police said seven people died and at least 28 were injured, but refused to say more about the incident.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

Famed Tourist Attraction

Zamalloa said the explosion occurred at 8:23 a.m., as the train was standing at the Cuzco station shortly before its departure for the ruins at Machu Picchu, 70 miles away. The city ruins, perched 2,000 feet up a sheer-sided mountain deep in the Andes, are Peru’s premier tourist attraction.

Zamalloa said the explosion apparently was caused by a time bomb that went off in the second-to-last car of the train, which had six or seven cars and could carry up to 60 passengers.

It was the first time a passenger train has been attacked since Peru’s political violence broke out six years ago.

Twice in the last month, officials have blamed the Maoist-oriented Shining Path guerrilla group for attacks on freight trains carrying ore in Peru’s central mining region.

Prisoners Slain

On June 18, at least 250 imprisoned Shining Path guerrillas were killed when thousands of troops stormed three prisons in or near Lima to put down prisoner uprisings, according to the government.

On Tuesday, Shining Path guerrillas hung effigies of President Alan Garcia and soldiers with signs promising revenge.

In a nationally televised speech Tuesday night, Garcia ordered a number of police commanders and officers jailed, saying an investigation showed that police who put down the prison riots had killed as many as 40 inmates who had surrendered.

“I denounce those who have committed murder . . . ,” Garcia said.

Officers to Be Tried

“I have ordered the imprisonment and the trials of the commanders and officers of the Republican Guard (police force) that, after the surrender, proceeded to brutally annihilate the subversives,” he said.

He did not say how many policemen had been imprisoned but said they included all the commanders and officers who participated in the slaughter at the San Pedro prison.