Posted on 03/12/2004 1:26:39 AM PST by kattracks
When the first bomb hit, people were too stunned to move. When the second one went off, people screamed and ran in all directions."Some even went into the train tunnels without thinking other trains could be coming," said Anibal Altamirano, who was in the Atocha rail center, where seven blasts erupted. "People dropped everything - bags and shoes - and ran, many trampling on others."
Terrified commuters banged into each other as they fled in opposite directions and more explosions rocked the station.
"I saw many things explode in the air. It was horrible. I saw people with blood pouring from them, people on the ground," said Juani Fernandez, 50, who had been waiting for a train at the station.
Within minutes, the explosions were over, and the awful carnage became evident.
At the El Pozo station, a body was blasted onto the roof of the double-decker train. An additional 70 bodies carpeted the platform.
Trains were torn open like tin cans. Shoes littered platforms and stairways.
Survivors staggered out of the stations with blood streaming down their faces, or sat dazed between the rails.
As the news rocketed through the capital, cell phones started ringing, some of them on the bodies of the dead.
"The hardest thing was hearing mobile phones ringing in the pockets of the bodies," said Esperanza Aguirre, head of the Madrid regional government. The rescue workers, she said, "couldn't get that out of their heads."
Hundreds of people whose loved ones took the predawn train to Madrid rushed to identify bodies and scour lists on hospital notice boards. A makeshift morgue was set up at a convention center.
"I'm looking for my wife," said Carlos Alberto Rendon, who went to the main Madrid hospital. "I don't know anything; I can't find her anywhere and her name isn't on any of the lists," said Rendon, explaining that his wife commuted into the city every morning to work at a restaurant.
At Gregorio Maranon Hospital, the anxious followed makeshift signs reading "Families" pointing around the back. Some came out looking relieved. Others wept as they got back into their cars and headed across Madrid to the makeshift morgue at a trade-fair building outside the city. "This is where the tragedy continues," hospital medic Juan Carlos Gil said as relatives huddled in groups, clutching each other.
The day of terror gave way to mourning in Madrid last night, as people filled churches and held candlelight vigils on the streets.
Citizens planned massive anti-terrorism marches for today, and Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar called for three days of mourning.
Thousands of people took to the streets in cities all over Spain in a spontaneous expression of grief.
With News Wire Services
Originally published on March 12, 2004
Then kill the bastards.
What a very eerie scenario. You know it those calls were likely from family members wanting to know their loved one was OK. What pain must have been felt on the other end of that ringing line.
It wasn't a copy of the New Testament they found in that van with the detonators.
If I could reach you, I'd slap some sense into your empty head....
If the early Christians can spread and thrive in the midst of Rome's persecutions; if Christianity can survive and spread in Communist China of all places; then by God it can withstand pin-prick attacks by a bunch of murderous thugs.
I'll be honest, Monty -- you sound like one of the churches in Revelations. Stop that.
L
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