29 June 1882
On the night of June 29-30, one of the worst train disasters of that time occurred. 312 km from Moscow in the direction of Kursk, not far from village of Kukuevka, A heavy rain washed away the embankment above the ravine, and a passenger train fell into the hole. The first seven cars sank into the mud. More than 40 people died.
The wrecked carriages did not disappear suddenly, but were sucked in over the course of several minutes; the unfortunate passengers grabbed the planks, screamed and called for help, but they were carried away by the water and pulled into the swamp. (from the memoirs of a passenger)
Mail and passenger train No. 3 left Moscow at 15:30 PM. Soon a strong wind arose, and a thunderstorm with torrential rain began. The storm raged over several provinces, including Tula и Orlovskaya.
At 2.40 am the train reached Chern station 287 miles from Moscow. There I waited for the oncoming train No. 4, which was coming from Kursk. The engineer of that train noticed something was wrong on the tracks. According to one version, he wanted to report the malfunction, but the telegraph was out of order due to a thunderstorm. According to another, he managed to warn the engineer of train #3, but pointed out the dangerous section at the 290th verst. Here's how a surviving passenger described what happened next. Alekseev:
Before reaching the 290th verst, the engineer slowed down... having safely passed this place, our train went faster, thinking that the danger had passed, but, unfortunately, it was at the 296th verst, where the terrible catastrophe occurred <> In the first minute of consciousness, I was amazed that instead of a carriage, I found myself lying in a stream... A stunning picture presented itself to my eyes: a hole approximately 14 fathoms deep, the bottom and top of which were cluttered with a mass of debris... Heart-rending screams and groans were heard everywhere
The immediate cause of the tragedy was a heavy rain: a one-meter-diameter cast-iron culvert under an earthen embankment over a deep ravine failed to cope with the influx of water. The embankment was washed away over a large section. The track was suspended in midair, torn apart by the passing train. The train plunged into the void and was buried under masses of liquefied soil.
The entire embankment, for nearly half a verst, was made of clay; the slopes of the fields formed a basin in front of it, for the drainage of which only one pipe, two arshins in diameter—no more—was laid. This embankment collapsed many times, but it was repaired with clay, and the crushed pipe was replaced with another of the same size, ignoring the fact that sometimes sand filled its opening and that water accumulated above it, and the force of the pressure was not taken into account; meanwhile, it was so strong that during a real catastrophe, a section of the pipe weighing 150 poods was uprooted by the water and carried half a verst to the side. (World Illustration)
The Kukuevskaya embankment had a bad reputation with the technical supervision authorities almost from the moment it was built, according to the magazine "Nabladel." However, there was no talk of closing the embankment to repair the defects, lest they lose revenue. Three weeks before the disaster, the Minister of Railways Konstantin Posyet personally inspected the line and concluded that the Moscow-Kursk railway is in good condition.
The scale of the tragedy, as well as the delay in aid arriving (the train only picked up the wounded five hours later), could not be ignored. Thanks in part to journalists. A reporter was one of the first to arrive on the scene. Vladimir Gilyarovsky When the tragedy occurred, he was dining with the manager of the Moscow-Kursk Railway. Hearing of the emergency, he secretly boarded the ministerial train and made his way to the crash site.
In the first telegram I sent to the newspaper [Moskovsky Listok] on the day of my arrival, I pondered the name of the area. I asked what the nearest village was called. "Kukuyevka," they replied, and I telegraphed about the disaster near the village of Kukuyevka. That's where the "Kukuyevka disaster" came from. (My Wanderings)
The recovery of the bodies lasted two weeks. Forty-two people died. Four railway workers were supposed to be brought to trial. However, the case was dismissed—in May 1883, in honor of his coronation, the emperor Alexander III declared an amnesty.
