AT LEAST 13 FEARED DEAD IN TERROR STRIKE IN SPAIN
MANY CASUALTIES At least 13 people killed, two armed men reportedly take hostages in nearby bar
BARCELONA: A van ploughed into crowds in Barcelona’s historic Las Ramblas district on Thursday and Spanish media reported at least 13 people were killed, in what police said they were treating as a terrorist attack.
Police said some people were dead and injured but did not confirm the number of casualties. They said were searching for the driver of the van.
Spanish newspaper El Periodico said two armed men were holed up in a bar in Barcelona’s city centre, and reported gunfire in the area, although it did not cite the source of the information. It was not immediately clear whether the incidents were connected.
Mobile phone footage posted on Twitter showed several bodies strewn along the Ramblas, some motionless.
Paramedics and bystanders bent over them, treating them and trying to comfort those still conscious.
Around them, the boulevard was deserted, covered in rubbish and abandoned objects including hats, bags and a pram.
BARCELONA: A van ploughed into crowds in the heart of Barcelona on Thursday and Spanish media reported at least 13 people were killed, in what police said they were treating as a terrorist attack.
Police said some people were dead and injured but did not confirm the number of casualties. They said were searching for the driver of the van.
Spanish newspaper El Periodico said two armed men were holed up in a bar in Barcelona’s city centre, and reported gunfire in the area, although it did not cite the source of the information.
It was not immediately clear whether the incidents were connected.
Media reports said the van had zigzagged at speed down the famous Las Ramblas avenue, a magnet for tourists.
“I heard screams and a bit of a crash and then I just saw the crowd parting and this van going full pelt down the middle of the Ra mb las and I immediately knew that it was a terrorist attack or something likethat,” eyewitness Tom Gueller told the BBC.
“It wasn’t slowing down at all. It was just going straight through the middle of the crowds in the middle of the Ramblas.”
Mobile phone footage posted on Twitter showed several bodies strewn along the Ra mb las, some motionless. Paramedics and bystanders bent over them, treating them and trying to comfort those still conscious.
Around them, the boulevard was deserted, covered in rubbish and abandoned objects including hats, bags and a pram.
“We saw a white van collide with people. We saw people going flying because of the collision,we also saw three cyclists go flying,” Ellen Vercamm, on holiday in Barcelona, told El Pais newspaper, which said the driver of the vehicle had fled on foot.
Emergency services said people should not go to the area around Barcelona’ s Pl a ca Cat al unya, one of the city’s main square sat the top of the Ra mb las, and requested the closure of nearby train and metro stations.
Prime Minister Maria no Ra joy said he was in contact with authorities, and the priority was to attend to the injured.
The incident took place at the height of the tourist season in Barcelona, which is one of Europe’s top travel destinations with at least 11 million visitors a year.
In recent weeks, threatening graffiti against tourists has appeared in Barcelona. In one video released under the slogan “tourism kills neigh bo ur hoods ”, several hooded individuals stopped a tourist bus in Barcelona, slashed the ty res and spraypainted the windscreen.
The attack was the deadliest in Spain since March 2004, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,800.