Soviet Passenger Train Hits Bus; 31 Killed, 14 Injured

A bus that was waved through a railroad crossing was struck by a passenger train, killing 31 people and injuring 14, the official Soviet news agency Tass said Saturday. It was the second major railway accident in a week.

The bus, carrying 46 people, was rammed Friday afternoon while it was crossing the tracks between the settlements of Kamenskaya and Pogorelovo, about 716 miles south of Moscow, Tass said.

The report said 29 people died at the scene and two others succumbed while being taken to a hospital. Fourteen others were hospitalized, Tass said.

“The train was traveling fast and the train driver was unable to stop it in time to avoid a collision with the bus,” Tass said, quoting Vitaly Komarov, head of the State Traffic Inspectorate.

A guard working at the intersection had waved the bus through as the train, traveling at 48 m.p.h., approached the crossing en route to Voronezh from the city of Adler on the Black Sea coast, the news agency said.

Tass also said that two trains had collided in the same area in August, 1987, killing 106 people.

Friday’s crash follows the explosion of a gas pipeline along the Trans-Siberian railway on June 3, which set off a fire that engulfed two trains and left 462 people dead or missing.