SPAIN: At least two people, one of them a young girl, were killed when a car bomb exploded in the eastern Spanish coast town of Santa Pola yesterday, local officials said.
Regional government official Mr Francisco Camps said that a man and a young girl were killed when the bomb exploded at around 8:30 p.m. in front of a barracks, which was empty at the time.
Several people were injured.
A civil guard told Spanish radio that material damage caused by the bomb was significant. Emergency services were at the scene and had sealed off the area of the blast.
The bomb exploded near a bus-stop in the Costa Blanca resort.
Several people who were wounded in the blast were taken to hospital in nearby Elche, but authorities were unable to provide a toll of the injured.
There was no immediate word if the incident was linked to militant Basque separatist group ETA, which has been blamed for the deaths of around 800 people in its 30-year campaign for an independent homeland.
But Spanish radio reports began immediately attributing the blast to the militant group.
Earlier this month, ETA claimed responsibility for a string of bomb attacks that rocked Spain as the country hosted a European Union summit in June, saying it wanted to hit the country's economic and tourist interests.
No one was killed in those attacks but nine were left injured as the group set off a series of bombs in southern beach resorts.
The group has been blamed for a total of nine car bombs so far this year, in which 42 people have been wounded. - (AFP)