Survivors have recounted the moment a passenger train derailed in Moscow overnight, leaving 21 people dead and more than 150 injured.
The Moscow Metro train derailed at 8.39am Tuesday morning (local time) during peak hour, leaving hundreds of people trapped underground.
Speaking to Russian media, survivors described scenes of confusion as passengers struggled to get free.
Andrey Sazykin, 25, told Russian tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda they had no idea when help would come.
"There was no connection at all. We pressed the emergency button. It did not work, probably it was broken. The train driver was silent," she said.
Eyewitness Ivan said the crash happened in seconds.
"I think the accident happened about 15-20 seconds after the train departed from the station. I was tossed up in the air," he told news channel RT.
Another survivor Andrey Zenin told RT that passengers on the train had immediately sprung to help others in the aftermath of the crash.
"The carriage that was across the tracks had a small fire in it and was full of smoke," he said.
"We took the fire extinguishers and started to extinguish the fire. We then broke down the door into the next tunnel and some of the people who were able to move started to walk from the next carriage towards metro workers, who led them towards the tunnel, which led upstairs.
"It had an elevator, but it wasn’t very big, so first of all we put the injured in the elevator."
President Vladimir Putin, who is on a trip to Brazil, has ordered a criminal probe into the tragedy that put a huge strain on the city of some 12 million and snarled traffic on its notoriously clogged roads amid a heatwave.
The Investigative Committee said it was looking at a number of possible causes including a mechanical flaw in a carriage and a power failure.
A terror attack has been ruled out, the committee said.
The head of Moscow's health department, Georgy Golukhovore, said more than 160 people have been hospitalised following the crash, including 42 still in intensive care.
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