Eight people detained in an international sweep aimed at nailing those behind a spectacular $50-million diamond heist at Brussels airport will appear in court next week, a report said Thursday.

The Belga news agency, citing the prosecutors office, gave no details of the charges they could face.

The casualty toll in Belgium from the derailing of a train carrying highly toxic chemicals -- which exploded and sent spectacular strips of fire into the night sky -- rose dramatically Sunday to one dead and 49 injured.

Two victims were in intensive care and six of the injured were rescue workers exposed to fumes from chemicals that spilled from the train that derailed near the city of Ghent, officials said.

One person died and 17 others were injured on Saturday when a train carrying highly toxic chemicals derailed in Belgium, causing a major fire near the city of Ghent, local officials said.

Jan Briers, governor of eastern Flanders, had earlier said there were two dead and 14 injured, but late Saturday authorities announced that 17 injured people have been hospitalized and officials were investigating the cause of one fatality.

Belgian authorities on Saturday evacuated nearly 300 people from their homes after several cars of a train carrying chemicals derailed, causing a major fire near the city of Gent.

Nobody was hurt in the accident which happened around 2:00 am (0000 GMT) between the towns of Schellebelle and Wetteren, said Infrabel, the entity responsible for the Belgian railway network.

The Catholic Church in Belgium on Wednesday angrily denounced Femen topless protesters who targeted its primate at a conference though the archbishop himself remained composed and apparently at prayer throughout.

The four protesters leaped out of their seats at a debate on blasphemy and freedom of expression held at the Brussels' Free University (ULB) campus Tuesday evening, baring their breasts and squirting water at Archbishop Andre Leonard as they accused him of homophobia.

Belgium went on the offensive Tuesday against radical Islamist recruitment networks, staging dozens of early morning raids and several arrests of individuals suspected of sending foreign fighters to the Syrian front.

More than 200 police carried out 48 early raids in the northern port city of Antwerp and in Vilvorde just outside Brussels, home to most of the 80 young Belgians known to have departed for Syria in recent months.

A 38-year-old Frenchman well-known in radical Islamist circles in Belgium was killed Sunday while fighting for an Islamist brigade in Syria, Belgian media said.

Raphael Gendron left for Syria several months ago to fight with the 'Falcons of Sham' headed by Abdelrahman Ayachi who was wounded Sunday and who is the son of Syrian-born radical Imam Bassam Ayachi, the SudPresse newspaper group said in a report on its website.

At least five people died and several were injured when a bus carrying Ukrainian and Russian teenagers crashed in northern Belgium, news media reported Sunday.

Television stations RTL and RTBF said the Polish-registered bus was carrying around 40 Ukrainians and Russians aged between 15 and 17 years old.

Feel like having chocolate at Easter in Belgium? Well, send a letter and really lick that chocolate-flavored postal stamp.

The Belgian post office released 538,000 stamps on Monday that have pictures of chocolate on the front but the essence of cacao oil in the glue at the back for taste and in the ink for smell.

Footage of a young man in psychological distress who asked for police protection but later died after being brutally battered by a crack six-man police unit caused shockwaves across Belgium on Friday.

The disturbing scenes of police brutality that took place in early 2010 in the suburbs of the port city of Antwerp were aired on the VRT Dutch-speaking television network in a documentary late Thursday.