Bomb found on rail line

TERROR fears on the continent were raised last night after the discovery of an explosive device half buried in the bed of a railway line in France.

The bomb, with some half-dozen detonators, was spotted by a rail worker yesterday near the town of Troyes, in the Aube region, 100 miles southeast of Paris, on a line heading from France to Switzerland.

It was the second device found in just over a month on a French rail track and comes two weeks after the train bombings in Madrid.

Speaking in the town several hours after the discovery, the French prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, said: "For the moment, we have no information about how dangerous this device may be."

About 10,000 maintenance workers had inspected thousands of miles of track after the government made public early this month a set of threats from a mysterious group, which calls itself AZF, to set off bombs on train tracks.

The group claimed to have planted nine bombs along the country’s rail network and has threatened to explode them unless it is paid millions of euros.

The top aide to the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said there were similarities between the device found yesterday and a bomb found near Limoges.

However, there were also big differences, said another official.