SPANISH authorities mobilised yesterday against an upsurge of terrorist attacks after an airport bomb blast, blamed on Basque separatists, left dozens injured and raised fears for Spain's lucrative tourism industry.
Politicians on all sides united to urge tourists and the Spanish population to remain calm in the wake of three bomb blasts on Saturday, including the one at Reus Airport near Tarragona, which injured 35 people.
Thirteen people - two Spaniards and 11 British tourists - were still in hospital last night. Five of them, one a six year old British girl, were seriously hurt.
A fourth bomb, hidden in toilets in a hotel at Salou, was defused yesterday.
The Interior Minister, Mr Jaime Mayor Oreja, and anti terrorist experts are studying measures to strengthen security.
Administrative sources said officials were seeking to intensify efforts to prevent new attacks", particularly in tourist areas on the Mediterranean coast.
Security forces asked hoteliers throughout the region to carry out exhaustive searches for bombs.
Mr Mayor Oreja said that ETA wants to generate disorder, division, and tension", but that its campaign would not change the government's anti terrorist policy.
"The terrorist group will not modify any government decision", he said, calling for calm in the face of attacks which would only "further unite normal people in Spain and Catalonia."
Shortly after the airport bomb on Saturday, two other devices exploded in a hotel in Cambrils and on an esplanade in Salou. They did not cause any injuries. Both towns, the target of ETA attacks last year, are coastal resorts south of Tarragona.
A caller who said he was speaking for ETA had warned two newspapers that Saturday's attacks were imminent, police said.
The group usually claims its attacks several days, even several weeks, after carrying them out.
A government spokesman, Mr Miguel Angel Rodriguez, said the attacks were a "campaign of confusion launched by the ETA" and called on people to "react calmly" to them.
Until Saturday, the bombs had not claimed any casualties.
Calm had returned to Reus Airport and the towns of Cambrils and Salou yesterday. Thousands of holiday makers, both Spanish and foreign, crowded the beaches.
The Spanish press reported, however, that tourist industry workers, especially hoteliers, feared cancellations from their many foreign customers.
In London, Britons who were at Reus Airport when the bomb exploded spoke of the panic that spread through the airport building immediately after the blast.
It was a nightmare. I saw kids with cuts on their arms and faces", said one. Another said: "I've never been so scared in my entire life and I'm a man who doesn't scare easy.
Only hours before Saturday's attacks, Spain's conservative Prime Minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, had said the fight against terrorism would be stepped up, without elaborating.
He also welcomed a decision made on Friday by the Supreme Court to summon 25 members of the leadership of Herri Batasuna, the ETA's political wing, to appear in court on charges of distributing a propaganda video about ETA at political rallies ahead of Spain's general elections in March.