Up to 60 injured as car bomb detonates
Source: Agencies |
July 30, 2009, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A POWERFUL car bomb exploded in northern Spain yesterday outside a barracks housing police officers and their families, injuring up to 60 people and causing major damage in the area.
The attack has been blamed on the Basque separatist group, ETA.
Most of the injuries from the blast in Burgos were from flying glass, and 38 of the wounded were treated in hospitals, regional ministry representative Miguel Alejo said. Many of the injured were civil guard police officers and family members.
The bomb detonated about 4am and left a crater that filled with water from broken underground pipes, Alejo said.
"The car used to cause the explosion has been displaced some 70 meters, so that gives you an idea of the power of the blast," he said.
Police and emergency services did not receive any warning that a bomb had been planted, but the explosion had the hallmarks of an ETA attack, Alejo said.
There were around 120 people in the barracks and surrounding buildings, a third of them children, when the explosion went off.
ETA, which has killed more than 825 people since it launched a campaign in 1968 for an independent homeland in the Basque region of northern Spain, typically phones in warnings that a bomb is about to explode giving time to evacuate the area.
The last attack blamed on the group was on July 10 when a bomb exploded outside an office of the Spanish prime minister's party in the Basque town of Durango, causing significant damage but no injuries.
The group's last fatal attack took place on June 19, when a bomb attached to the underside of a car killed a Spanish police detective whose job was to investigate ETA.
Television images yesterday showed considerable damage to the 14-story barracks building in Burgos and many residential dwellings around it with windows and some walls blown in by the power of the explosion.
It is common for members of the paramilitary civil guard police force to live in barracks with spouses and children.
The force is chiefly in charge of policing rural areas and guarding official buildings.
Burgos is an important regional capital and contains a historic city center and major tourist attractions.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba rushed to the scene and condemned the bombing. "The attack aimed to cause deaths," he told reporters. "Forty-one girls and boys were sleeping and could simply have been killed in what was a major car bomb.
He said all of the injured had been discharged from the hospital by midday.
The minister said the van had used false license plates and had probably been stolen in France.
The attack has been blamed on the Basque separatist group, ETA.
Most of the injuries from the blast in Burgos were from flying glass, and 38 of the wounded were treated in hospitals, regional ministry representative Miguel Alejo said. Many of the injured were civil guard police officers and family members.
The bomb detonated about 4am and left a crater that filled with water from broken underground pipes, Alejo said.
"The car used to cause the explosion has been displaced some 70 meters, so that gives you an idea of the power of the blast," he said.
Police and emergency services did not receive any warning that a bomb had been planted, but the explosion had the hallmarks of an ETA attack, Alejo said.
There were around 120 people in the barracks and surrounding buildings, a third of them children, when the explosion went off.
ETA, which has killed more than 825 people since it launched a campaign in 1968 for an independent homeland in the Basque region of northern Spain, typically phones in warnings that a bomb is about to explode giving time to evacuate the area.
The last attack blamed on the group was on July 10 when a bomb exploded outside an office of the Spanish prime minister's party in the Basque town of Durango, causing significant damage but no injuries.
The group's last fatal attack took place on June 19, when a bomb attached to the underside of a car killed a Spanish police detective whose job was to investigate ETA.
Television images yesterday showed considerable damage to the 14-story barracks building in Burgos and many residential dwellings around it with windows and some walls blown in by the power of the explosion.
It is common for members of the paramilitary civil guard police force to live in barracks with spouses and children.
The force is chiefly in charge of policing rural areas and guarding official buildings.
Burgos is an important regional capital and contains a historic city center and major tourist attractions.
Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba rushed to the scene and condemned the bombing. "The attack aimed to cause deaths," he told reporters. "Forty-one girls and boys were sleeping and could simply have been killed in what was a major car bomb.
He said all of the injured had been discharged from the hospital by midday.
The minister said the van had used false license plates and had probably been stolen in France.
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