Hundreds of Soviets Killed in Explosion

MOSCOW--A gas pipeline alongside the Trans-Siberian Railroad exploded as two passenger trains passed yesterday, incinerating rail cars and killing "hundreds and hundreds" of people, Soviet television said.

At least 800 of the estimated 1,200 people aboard the trains were missing, according to Tass, which described the explosion as a "tornado of fire." Many of the passengers were seriously injured by burning liquified gas, the TV report said.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other top officials rushed to the scene. It was the third serious train accident in the Soviet Union in a year.

The pipeline containing liquefied petroleum gas exploded at 1:14 a.m. as the trains passed each other on opposite tracks between the towns of Ufa and Asha, 745 miles southeast of Moscow, Tass said. The news agency said gas seeped from the conduit and caught fire, but it was not clear what caused the leak.

"The exact figure of those killed by the accident is not yet known, but their number is measured by hundreds and hundreds," a television correspondent said on the nightly news. He said the death toll was high because burning liquified gas from the pipeline spewed into the railroad cars.

TV film broadcast to millions of Soviets showed charred railroad cars without windows lying at odd angles amid twisted tracks and broken railroad ties. The area was blackened and barren as though it had been bulldozed, a stark contrast to the plush green of trees dominating the landscape.

Black smoke wafted from the wreckage as a somber-faced Gorbachev, along with Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, was shown speaking to people at the scene.

The blast was so strong it shattered windows in a village seven miles away and incinerated dozens of acres of trees, a TV correspondent said in a report from Chelyabinsk, the biggest city near the site.

As graphic film of bloody and blackened faces of victims flashed on the screen, the correspondent said many of the injured suffered second and third-degree burns, some over 80 percent of their bodies.

"Military units are searching the forest and mountains in the hope that some of the passengers managed to escape from the tornado of fire," Tass said.

Ufa Mayor Mikhail A. Zaitsev said many injured were transported to his city, 60 miles west of the remote accident site in the Ural Mountains.

"Helicopters are constantly arriving with more injured," he said in a telephone interview. "It's terrible. It's monstrous. The people are very shocked and are suffering about what happened," he said, his voice shaking.

Others who accompanied Gorbachev to the scene included Russian federation Premier Alexander V. Vlasov, Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov, and Health Minister Yevgeny I. Chazov.

The emergency trip by Gorbachev recalled his decision in December to cut chort a New York visit so he could rush to Soviet Armenia, where about 25,000 people were killed in an earthquake.

The Trans-Siberian Railroad links the western, European part of the country to the Asian region in the east. The passenger trains involved were traveling between Novosibirsk, the largest town in Siberia with a population of 1.3 million, and Adler, a popular health resort.

Doctors, soldiers and police rushed to the site, where a field hospital was set up to help the victims and relatives of the dead, Tass said.

"A mass campaign to collect blood has been launched in the towns of the region even though it is Sunday, and blood is also being delivered to the Ural Mountains by helicopters," the news agency reported.

A nationwide day of mourning was declared.

In the most recent serious train accident in the Soviet Union, two freight trains, one laden with propane, collided May 20 in the capital of Soviet Kazakhstan. An ensuing explosion and fire killed five people, and destroyed factories and 13 houses. Since the Arzamas accident, the Soviet press has published a number of articles complaining about lax railway safety.