THOUSANDS OF holidaymakers were stranded yesterday as Spanish police stopped aircraft and ships leaving the island of Mallorca after a bomb attack killed two police officers in the resort town of Palma Nova.
The blast, blamed on the Basque separatist group Eta, took place in an area of Calvia municipality, just a few hundred yards from crowded tourist beaches.
Two officers from the civil guard police force, Carlos Saenz de Tejada and Diego Salva de Lezaun, were killed instantly. Photographs and video film showed their police car in flames and, later, as a burned out hulk of twisted metal.
“It was a huge explosion, with bits of car all over the place,” one eyewitness told the Cadena SER radio station.
Police were yesterday investigating to see if a limpet bomb, similar to one that killed police officer Eduardo Puelles in the northern city of Bilbao six weeks ago, had been used. A second limpet bomb was reported to have been defused on another vehicle.
Police blocked entry to Spain’s third biggest airport at Palma de Mallorca, and cruise liners were ordered not to raise anchor. The ban on departures was lifted several hours later, but dozens of flights were believed to have been delayed or cancelled.
Some 660 flights had been due to leave or arrive at the airport during the day, according to Spanish press reports.
Police have reportedly been scouring Spain for three cars that were stolen recently in France and which may be being prepared by Eta as car bombs.
Helen Halstead (30), from Manchester, England, was at a nearby restaurant when she heard the explosion.
She said: “As soon as I heard the noise I ran around the corner and found there was quite a big fire in a car. There was debris around the car and in the road and smoke in the sky. There was a guy on the floor and they were trying to resuscitate him.
Spain’s King Juan Carlos is due to start his summer holidays in Marivent Palace, just 16km away, this weekend.
The blast followed the lucky escape of dozens of civil guard members and their families, including children, after a 200kg bomb ripped through a 14-storey barracks building in Burgos, northern Spain, on Wednesday.
That attack injured 65 people, including five children, but none of them were seriously hurt.
The two bomb attacks came as Eta was apparently trying to show its strength after several months in which it has been increasingly cornered by police in Spain and France.
The group’s ability to mount two such different attacks, and in places far from one another, made claims by Spanish police to have Eta on the run look questionable.
The attacks coincide with the 50th anniversary of Eta’s founding.
A letter announcing that a group of young radicals had split from the non-violent Basque Nationalist party to form Eta reached the party’s leadership in exile 50 years ago today.
Corkman Felan Lynch, who is on holidays in Palma Nova with his wife and two children, said he saw the police carrying out sweeps of the beaches in the area earlier in the day, something which he had not seen before.
“We were at the pool when we heard a big blast. It gave us an awful fright and at first we thought it was a gas explosion. Within minutes we were told by hotel management to stay within the complex and not to leave the grounds. The police station, where we were told the explosion happened, is only a few yards up the road,” Mr Lynch said.