MAKHACHKALA, Russia, Nov 30 (Reuters) - A bomb exploded under a train in Russia's troubled Dagestan on Monday but there were no fatalities, police said, just days after a similar blast killed 26 passengers on a train from Moscow to St Petersburg.
The device went off under train No. 374 en route from Siberian oil town Tyumen to Azerbaijan’s capital Baku at 5:52 a.m. (0252 GMT), said a police spokesman in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala.
"The train had eight passenger carriages and it proceeded along its route despite the blast. No passengers were hurt," the spokesman said. Local agencies quoted prosecutors as saying the bomb was equivalent to between 300 g and 1.5 kg (0.66 to 3.3 lb) of TNT.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the explosion in Dagestan looked just the same as Friday night’s attack on the luxury Nevsky Express train.
"We know that a second attempt to commit just the same act of terror has now been made in Dagestan," local news agencies quoted Putin as telling First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov who heads a commission investigating Friday’s blast.
"As for ensuring the general safety of infrastructure, there can be just one solution — to work to prevent it. This is a task for law enforcement and security agencies."
No one has claimed responsibility for Friday’s bombing, but security analysts said militant groups from Russia’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus — which includes Dagestan — were the most likely culprits.
The attack raised fears of a new wave of bomb attacks, five years after a bombing campaign in Moscow by Chechen rebels.
Dagestan and Ingushetia, plagued by corruption and poverty, have become the main targets of Islamist rebels as violence spills over from neighbouring Chechnya where Moscow forces have fought two wars against separatists since the mid-1990s.
