Blast on Georgian railway derails cargo waggons

TBILISI (Reuters) - An explosion in Georgia on Wednesday derailed several waggons of a goods train carrying oil products, authorities said, the latest of several blasts aimed at rail traffic in the country's western region.

"According to preliminary information, TNT was used to carry out this explosion," Georgian Railway spokeswoman Irma Stetnadze told Reuters.

The blast happened on the line between Senaki and Poti, a port on Georgia's Black Sea coast. Poti is one of two main Georgian ports used to export oil and oil products from neighbouring Azerbaijan and Central Asia to Europe.

The port of Batumi handles the bulk of oil exports.

Western Georgia is adjacent to the breakaway Black Sea region of Abkhazia.

Stetnadze said repair work was under way but she could not say when traffic on the line would resume. She said the explosion shattered windows in a nearby village, but no one was hurt.

A number of blasts have hit western Georgia in the year since its five-day war with Russia, when Russian forces crushed a Georgian military assault on the breakaway pro-Moscow region of South Ossetia.

Casualties are rare and in most cases the explosions cause only minor damage.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Tim Pearce)