"Terrorists" blow up Georgia rail line, official says
TBILISI, June 2 (Reuters) - A bomb damaged a railway line connecting east and west Georgia on Tuesday in a "terrorist" attack, a local railway official said.
The blast on the Tbilisi-to-Zugdidi line occurred at around 3:30 a.m. (2230 GMT Monday), two hours before a passenger train was due to travel the route.No one was hurt.
The explosion was close to the de facto border with the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia but there was no immediate evidence of any separatist involvement.
"I think it's a pure terrorist attack because some explosives and a clock mechanism were used," Zurab Gogokhia, the chief of Georgian Railways for the west of the country, said.
"Thank God it happened before the passenger train appeared," he told Reuters.
The line was repaired within hours.
"The railway is now working as repair works are completed," Irma Stepnadze, the Georgian Railways spokeswoman, told Reuters, adding that 12 metres of track had to be repaired.
"According to preliminary information, it was sabotage," Stepnadze said.
An interior ministry official said the route is not one of those used to ship Caspian oil from Azerbaijan to Georgia's Black Sea coast.
The explosion took place near the village of Ingiri, around 300 km (180 miles) from the capital Tbilisi on one of the main routes for passenger and cargo trains.
Georgia fought a five-day war with Russia last year after it attempted to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Moscow subsequently recognised both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries. (Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Charles Dick)
The blast on the Tbilisi-to-Zugdidi line occurred at around 3:30 a.m. (2230 GMT Monday), two hours before a passenger train was due to travel the route.No one was hurt.
The explosion was close to the de facto border with the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia but there was no immediate evidence of any separatist involvement.
"I think it's a pure terrorist attack because some explosives and a clock mechanism were used," Zurab Gogokhia, the chief of Georgian Railways for the west of the country, said.
"Thank God it happened before the passenger train appeared," he told Reuters.
The line was repaired within hours.
"The railway is now working as repair works are completed," Irma Stepnadze, the Georgian Railways spokeswoman, told Reuters, adding that 12 metres of track had to be repaired.
"According to preliminary information, it was sabotage," Stepnadze said.
An interior ministry official said the route is not one of those used to ship Caspian oil from Azerbaijan to Georgia's Black Sea coast.
The explosion took place near the village of Ingiri, around 300 km (180 miles) from the capital Tbilisi on one of the main routes for passenger and cargo trains.
Georgia fought a five-day war with Russia last year after it attempted to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Moscow subsequently recognised both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries. (Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Charles Dick)
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