The July 1979 Madrid bombings were a series of bomb attacks carried out by

ETA political-military ETA political-military (Spanish: ''ETA político-militar'', Basque: ''ETA politiko-militarra'') or ETA (pm) was the majority faction of the Basque revolutionary armed organization ETA, who during Spain's transition to democracy opted for a doub ...

(ETA-pm), a faction of the armed Basque separatist group

ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

. The attacks, consisting of coordinated bombings in Barajas Airport and the train stations of Atocha and Chamartín, killed 7 people and injured a further 100. The bombings occurred a day after two attacks in

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and San Sebastian, with both attacks killing two people.

The attacks

Barajas airport

The first bomb was placed on the ground floor of the airport, in the domestic arrivals section near an information desk.La Vanguardia, 31 July 1979, p3-4
accessed 29 April 2012 The bomb consisted of 6 kilos of

Amatol Amatol is a highly explosive material made from a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate. The British name originates from the words ammonium and toluene (the precursor of TNT). Similar mixtures (one part dinitronaphthalene and seven parts ammoniu ...

and exploded at 13:01, destroying nearby shops, toilets and windows. Broken glass from the windows led to numerous injuries, among them a soldier and a member of the Guardia Civil. Taxis were used to transport some of the injured to La Paz clinic. The bomb killed three people.

Chamartín railway station

The bomb was placed in a locker near a waiting room. The explosion occurred at 13:10 and created panic, with many fleeing from the building towards exits, only to return a few minutes later when the realised that they had abandoned their luggage. Dorothea Fertig, a student from Germany, was decapitated as a result of the bomb.

Atocha railway station

The most serious attack occurred at Atocha at 13:15 with 3 instantly killed and 40 wounded due to the structure of the lockers in which the bomb had been placed. The three attacks caused a total of 23 million pesetas worth of damage.

Telephone warnings

There was confusion and controversy over the timings of telephone warnings made by ETA to the Euskadi Press organisation in the Basque Country and the forwarding of the warnings to the relevant agencies. Euskadi Press claimed that they had received the telephone warning about the three bombs at 12:00, an hour before the first explosion and had telephoned the police chief of San Sebastian two minutes later, with the latter promising to inform police in Madrid. Euskadi Press then attempted to phone various newspapers in Madrid, among them

El Pais EL, El or el may refer to: Religion * El (deity), a Semitic word for "God" People * EL (rapper) (born 1983), stage name of Elorm Adablah, a Ghanaian rapper and sound engineer * El DeBarge, music artist * El Franco Lee (1949–2016), American po ...

, but found the offices empty as it was a Sunday, they claimed that they had then phoned the

EFE agency Agencia EFE, S.A. () is a Spanish international news agency, the major multimedia news agency in Spanish language and the world's fourth largest wire service after the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. EFE was created in 193 ...

in Madrid. The civil governor of Madrid, Juan Jose Roson, claimed that Efe had only received the call from Euskadi Press at 12:40 and that Efe had then informed Madrid authorities at 12:43, less than 20 minutes before the first explosion. Roson argued that this had made evacuation impossible in the limited time available. For their part, ETA-pm accused the authorities of not acting on the warnings, in order to discredit the organisation.

Reactions

The attacks were condemned by the Basque left, including parties regarded as close to ETA.Partidos próximos a las dos ramas de ETA condenan los atentados

, 1 August 1979, p10

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madrid bombings Mass murder in 1979 Improvised explosive device bombings in Madrid ETA (separatist group) actions Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport 1970s in Madrid 1979 murders in Spain 1979 disasters in Spain Terrorist incidents in Europe in 1979 Terrorist incidents in Spain in the 1970s Building bombings in Spain July 1979 events in Europe Mass murder in Spain Terrorist attacks on airports 1979 crimes July 1979 events Improvised explosive device bombings in 1979 1970s building bombings