Spain falls silent to remember Madrid train dead
Spaniards lit candles, laid flowers and fell into a long, mournful silence today as they marked the first anniversary of bombs that ripped apart crowded Madrid commuter trains, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,500.
King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia led government leaders and other dignitaries at the main memorial act – a silent, five-minute vigil at noon, inaugurating a grove of 192 olive and cypress trees, one for each person killed on the trains and a policeman killed when Islamic militant suspects seeking to avoid arrest blew themselves up.
The grove in Madrid’s main park has been christened the Forest of the Absent.
After the vigil, a young cellist dressed in black played Song of the Birds by Pablo Casals, a piece the late Spanish composer and musician had dedicated to peace.
As the dignitaries stood in grim silence, normally bustling Spanish society also paused in remembrance.
Trains – commuter and long-distance – made unscheduled stops at stations. People stopped in the street, grieving over an attack that cut across nationality, killing immigrants from Ecuador to Ukraine, from France to the Philippines.
Earlier, at train stations targeted in the country’s worst-ever terrorist attack, people cried as memories of the blasts returned. They left notes that tried to put pain into words.
“Who will give me back my will to live, which died here a year ago?” read a letter posted on a wall at El Pozo station – the deadliest of four scenes of carnage. It was signed only Susana, a woman who said she was injured when bombs gutted a double-decker train.
As dawn broke, hundreds of churches around the Madrid area rang their bells for five minutes starting at 7.37am (6.37 Irish time), when the first of 10 dynamite-loaded backpacks detonated on four rush-hour trains. Al-Qaida-linked militants claimed responsibility.
On a train following the same route as the four that were bombed last year, passengers rode in silence. A free newspaper handed out to commuters featured a black front page with a picture of a candle.
“It is hard to take the train today. You think about that day. It all comes back,” said commuter Pilar Almena, a 48-year-old chef.
Those attending the inauguration of the grove of trees included King Mohamed of Morocco, home to most of the 22 suspects in jail in connection with the attack.
Militants claimed responsibility for the attacks in videotapes, saying they were retaliating on al-Qaida’s behalf for Spanish troops’ presence in Iraq.
