One injured in Madrid car bomb

A car bomb exploded in Madrid today after a warning call from the armed Basque separatist group Eta, injuring one person, authorities said.

The blast was the sixth blamed on Eta since Spain’s prime minister announced earlier this month he was willing to hold talks with the separatist group if it renounced its decades-old campaign of violence.

The explosion occurred at around 8.30am Irish Time in the San Blas district in the north of the Spanish capital.

One person was slightly injured, emergency rescue services spokeswoman Beatriz Martin told Spanish television.

Police had cordoned off the area where the bomb went off after a caller to the Basque newspaper Gara, often a mouthpiece for Eta, said a bomb would explode inside a Renault van.

CNN+ television broadcast footage of a large column of black smoke rising from the area of the explosion.

Eta had not been blamed for an attack in Madrid since February.