The driver applied his emergency breaks but still could not avoid the tragedy

The appalling incident came as four children - including a brother and sister aged 13 and 10, posed for a selfie in front of an oncoming freight train on the Trans-Siberian line close to Vladivostok

'The driver applied his emergency breaks but still could not avoid the tragedy,' said a spokesperson for the Vladivostok division of the Far Eastern Railway.

Killed at the site were schoolboys Vladislav Khoroshinkin and Sergey Zembakhtin, both 13, and Sergey's sister Ustinya, ten.

Their 13 year old friend Anya Khvatova is in a 'grave but stable' condition in Vladivostok Hospital Number 2.



One local said blamed parents for not warning their children strongly enough to avoid such 'deranged' selfies

Another girl, Lera, 13, was with them but screaming at the group to get off the rail track at a point on the world's longest rail line 9,246 kilometres east of Moscow.

She heroically managed to pull Anya away but could not stop her being hit by the train.

'I was yelling at them: 'Stop! Leave!' said Lera, in tears as she recalled seeing her friends killed. 'They didn't hear me.

'I managed to grab Anya but she still was hit by train.

'When I ran to Sergey, he was already not breathing; when I got to to Anya, she was breathing.

'I was pleading with her not to die.'





Lera Sengeevskaya, 13, with her mother

A female witness said one of the children was 'cut in half' by the impact with the train.

'A boy was smashed so much that his intestines were hand-picked by railway workers in a plastic bag.'

One report said the children 'couldn't estimate the safe distance to the approaching train'.

Chief doctor Vyacheslav Glushko said Anya had undergone surgery.

'The girl is in intensive care, surgery was done yesterday, she is in a grave but stable condition. We're observing and treating her.'



One report said the children 'couldn't estimate the safe distance to the approaching train'

All the children went to the same school.

Mikhail Skobenko, principal of School Number 6 in Novy village, Nadezhdinsky district, said: 'It is a huge shock for parents, teachers and children.'

One local said blamed parents for not warning their children strongly enough to avoid such 'deranged' selfies.

Resident Yulia Vasilyeva said: 'Children are always walking along the railway, taking photos there, from smaller kids to older ones.'