Moscow mourns train blast victims

Mourners gather in city cemeteries to bury victims of the blast

The first funerals are being held of victims of a bomb attack on Moscow's underground last Friday.

Flags across the Russian capital are flying at half mast to mark a day of mourning for the 39 people killed.

More than 100 people are still in hospital after the attack, and there are fears the death toll may yet rise.

Investigators are working to establish who was behind the blast, which President Vladimir Putin has blamed on rebel fighters from Chechnya.

The first burial ceremonies were held in two cemeteries in central Moscow on Monday.

At Danilovsky cemetery, family and friends were burying university student Ivan Aladin, who died just 10 days before his 18th birthday.

"He overslept, he wasn't supposed to have been on that train," said his friend Valya Alexeyeva.

She said she fears travelling on the metro now, echoing the feelings of other Muscovites.

Black bows

At Avtozavodskaya metro station, the scene of the blast, flowers and tributes for the victims continued to pile up outside the entrance.

Someone tied a football scarf to the railings; others brought icons, candles and offerings of sweets for the dead.

The world's busiest metro

Outside the station, a city flag was flying at half mast and inside staff pinned black bows to their uniforms.

Special services have been held in many churches and there has been a heavy police presence in public places.

State television cancelled light entertainment shows and cinemas were ordered not to show any comedies during the day.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), meanwhile, has been accused of failing to prevent Friday's attack.

"Much of the fault lies with the FSB," Gennady Gudkov, a deputy head of the Duma security committee told Gazeta.ru, a Russian internet newspaper.

"It was the FSB that missed the information about the terrorists."

The Izvestia daily said an FSB official acknowledged two months ago that the underground was a soft target for terrorists and expected an attack to happen.

Blast puzzle

Police are still investigating whether the rush-hour explosion on board the carriage of a train after it left Avtozavodskaya station was a suicide bombing.

FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said explosives being transported on the train might have gone off accidentally, Ria Novosti news agency reported.

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No group has claimed responsibility, although President Putin immediately blamed Chechen separatists for the attack.

Rebel Chechen leaders denied involvement.

Security has been tightened across the network's 170 stations, as the authorities try to reassure a fearful public.

The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Moscow says most people have little alternative but to travel on the metro, and underground trains have been as busy as ever, adds our correspondent.

She says passengers are learning to live with terrorism, forced to accept it as a deadly new fact of life.