Moscow - Russian police on Sunday hunted for the bombers behind an attack that killed at least 26 people on an elite passenger train, while relatives began the grim task of identifying bodies.
It remained unclear what had motivated the attackers to strike the Nevsky Express, a train popular with well-off Russians and foreign tourists, as it ran from Moscow to Saint Petersburg late Friday evening.
"An active investigative and operational effort is under way to identify and find the individuals involved in the crime," Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for investigators, said on state television.
Markin said forensic experts had returned Sunday morning to the scene of the disaster, a wooded area about 400 kilometres (250 miles) northwest of Moscow, to look for clues.
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The chief of Russia's FSB security service had said earlier that the blast which derailed the train was caused by an improvised explosive device with the force of seven kilograms (15 pounds) of TNT.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev had said police had evidence suggesting that several persons took part in the attack, and gave a description of one of the suspects.
There was no immediate credible claim of responsibility for the attack, which led prosecutors to launch a terrorism investigation.
The Nevsky Express was hit by a similar bomb attack in August 2007 which injured 60 people, an incident that remains cloaked in mystery though it has been variously linked to Chechen separatists and Russian ultranationalists.
Friday's attack killed 26 and injured 104, while 18 people remain missing, according to Russia's emergency situations ministry.
An unnamed law-enforcement source told the Interfax news agency on Sunday that the death toll could rise above 26 because many detached body parts had been found at the scene and it was unclear who they belonged to.
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