ETA alert sparks fear tourists will be targeted

POLICE evacuated thousands of holidaymakers from beaches at a Spanish Mediterranean resort yesterday after a purported ETA bomb threat raised fears of a summer bombing campaign by the Basque separatists.

Authorities reopened the beaches at the Catalan resort of Sant Carles de la Rapita after police scoured the port’s five beaches and failed to find explosives.

“Everything is back to normal,” the town’s deputy mayor Josep Pitarch said. “The Civil Guard searched all the beaches and the rubbish bins and they found nothing.”

The alarm came days after two small bombs exploded at seaside resorts in the north of the country and after the government warned ETA bombers may be aiming to strike at the key tourism industry.

Basque nationalist newspaper Gara had said it had received the call about a bomb on Spain’s Mediterranean coast yesterday and passed the message to police. The caller had said the bomb would explode in 15 minutes.

Mr Pitarch said this alert was the third bomb scare in four days in Sant Carles de la Rapita.

“The first time it happened people were very frightened, but they are much less so now. People are annoyed because we are right in the month of August and this affects tourism,” he said.

ETA regularly stages summer bombing campaigns in an attempt to undermine Spain’s tourism industry, which accounts for more than a tenth of its economy.