The death toll from a collision in Russia between a train and a bus carrying dozens of Uzbek passengers has risen to at least 17 after a small child died from injuries sustained in the accident, a regional spokeswoman said.
Rita Shlyakhova, a spokeswoman for the governor of the Vladimir region, east of Moscow, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying on October 6 that the boy who died in the hospital was around 2 years old.
Police said the collision occurred at around 3:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. Prague time) on October 6 near a train station close to the city of Vladimir, which is 190 kilometers east of the capital.
Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Anuar Zhainakov said the bus, which reportedly had Kazakh license plates, was carrying 55 Uzbek passengers and two Kazakh drivers.
One of the drivers was among the dead, Zhainakov said on Facebook.
Regional police said the bus broke down while the driver was trying to cross the tracks despite a red light.
Photographs showed the badly mangled white bus, its front section totally destroyed, and debris strewn across the tracks.
Officials said the bus passengers were returning to Uzbekistan from the Moscow region when the crash occurred. Many people from Uzbekistan and other former Soviet republics in Central Asia come to Russia to look for work.
The regional branch of the Interior Ministry said later on October 6 that 17 foreign citizens who were not hurt in the accident had been written up for violations of immigration laws.
Authorities have opened a criminal investigation into potential transportation safety violations in connection with the accident.
Police said nobody aboard the train, which was traveling from St. Petersburg to Nizhny Novgorod, was killed in the collision.
Road accidents are common in Russia and death rates are high.
