Spanish beaches evacuated after hoax bomb threat

Thousands of tourists were evacuated from five Spanish Mediterranean beaches today following a bomb warning – the same area mentioned in false threats earlier in the week.

Sunseekers were allowed back after a two hour search produced no evidence of explosives, the government said.

“It looks like a sick joke, a desire to bother people,” said Montserrat Tura, the Interior Ministry chief for the regional government of Cataluna.

Police had ordered 2,000 people to clear the beaches of the Costa Dorada resort of Sant Carles de la Rapita after the Basque newspaper Gara, which often serves as a mouthpiece for the terror group ETA, received two calls warning of bombs, the Interior Ministry said.

In one warning, the caller reportedly claimed that 330 pounds of explosives loaded in a backpack would go off on the same beach area mentioned in bomb threats on Sunday and Tuesday.

“The beaches have been totally reopened,” said Carlos Genovilla, a member of Sant Carles de la Rapita council.

Summer bombing campaigns on Spain’s Costa resorts – at the height of the tourist season – are an ETA hallmark.

ETA claimed responsibility for two small bombs that exploded Saturday in northern tourist towns for which it gave warnings. No one was injured in the blasts.

An ETA-claimed bombing in August 2002 in the town of Santa Pola near Alicante killed two people, including a six-year-old girl.

The bombing prompted the Spanish government to undertake legal proceedings that culminated last year in the banning of Batasuna, a Basque pro-independence party seen as ETA’s political wing.