More than eight mllion people took to the streets of cities across Spain tonight to mourn the almost 200 people killed in the Madrid train massacre. As they gathered under torrential rain in the Spanish capital the 199th victim died - a seven-month-old baby girl whose mother is also in hospital and her father is missing.
Prime Minister Mr Jose Maria Aznar and political leaders from other European countries led a sea of
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humanity snaking its way down Madrid's main boulevard toward Atocha station, one of three bombed in Thursday's attacks.
Huge rallies also got underway in Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Oviedo and many other Spanish cities and towns.
In Madrid, huge crowds gathered outside Atocha station itself, and a stream of people backed up for miles back toward the starting point at Plaza de Colon. The rallies were scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. (6 p.m. Irish time), but an hour ahead of time people packed Madrid's main boulevard as they streamed toward the starting point.
In Barcelona, tens of thousands also packed a city-centre avenue well ahead of the march start.
Madrid's Plaza de Colon was jammed tight. People huddled together beneath the driving rain, their feet and legs soaked as they stood in puddles.
Spanish flags with black mourning ribbons hung from apartment balconies all around the square.
One group carried a banner that read, "No To Terror." Another one said, "Today Our Tears Reach Heaven."
In the nearby San Pascual church, Father Manuel Gonzalez draped a Spanish flag with a black ribbon in the vestibule.
"We are grieving," said Fr Gonzalez. "Peace in Madrid and in all of Spain is becoming more remote. We are a passionate people but we want peace."
Anonymous calls claiming to be from the Eta terror group were made to a newspaper and TV station in the north-west Basque region denying that it had any involvement in the bombings which also injured more than 1,400 people.
But Interior Minister Mr Angel Acebes said Eta remained the principle suspect although all leads - including claims that Osama bin-Laden's terror network was involved - were being pursued.
The attack bore all the hallmarks of Eta - bombs in rucksacks detonated remotely by mobile phones. Although when police examined an unexploded bomb they found it contained a detonator not normally used by Eta.
The Spanish government is lying deliberately
Mr Aznar pledged to hunt down those responsible for the horrific, co-ordinated attacks - 10 bombs that blew up four trains in a 15-minute span - but said the massive investigation has not yet pinpointed who
was responsible.
A militant Basque politician denied the armed Basque separatist group Eta was involved and accused the government of lying to seek political advantage in Sunday's national elections.
"The Spanish government is lying deliberately," Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the banned Batasuna party, said in Bilbao.
If Eta is deemed responsible for the attacks, that could boost support for Mariano Rajoy, Aznar's hand-picked candidate to become Spain's next leader. Both have supported a hard-line crackdown on the violent separatist group, which is fighting for an independent state in northern Spain, ruling out talks.
However, if the bombing is seen by voters as the work of al-Qaeda, that could draw voters' attention to Aznar's vastly unpopular decision to endorse the US led invasion of Iraq and the deployment of Spanish troops.
Campaigning was suspended in honour of the dead, but authorities said the elections would proceed as planned. Rajoy is 3 to 5% ahead of Socialist candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Looking for clues that might help pinpoint who was behind the attacks, bomb squad investigators combed through the mangled trains, taking samples for study, police said.
Offices, shops and cafes across Spain emptied at noon as people gathered to stand in the street to remember those killed in Spain's worst terrorist attack.
Authorities had requested a minute's silence but many people in Madrid stood in drizzly, chilly weather for about 10 minutes.
Mr Aznar stood outside the presidential palace with senior officials.
The silence there was broken when someone - apparently a government worker - angrily shouted: "Send the terrorists to the firing squad!"
In Barcelona, underground trains and buses halted and construction work stopped. In northern Spain's Basque region, hundred of students and professors at the University of the Basque Country in Leioa stood in silence and clapped at the end - a Spanish gesture of solidarity.
Underscoring jittery nerves in the capital, police hastily evacuated the Atocha train station, one of those bombed on Thursday, amid a bomb scare that turned out to be a false alarm.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, EC President Romano Prodi, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer were due to attend.
At one of his last news conferences as Spain's leader, Mr Aznar vowed to find those responsible for the attacks.
"We will bring the guilty to justice," Aznar said. "No line of investigation is going to be ruled out."
Scientists, doctors and other experts are working at the attack sites. A special area has been set aside at a police laboratory to study remains of trains, a government official said.
"They are analysing absolutely everything," another official said. "All sectors of the police force are involved."
More than 80 bodies remained unidentified today and the prime minister said 59 people were in critical or serious condition.
All the television stations placed a small red and yellow Spanish flag with a black sash in the corner of the screen. Commuter trains also travelled with black cloth on the engine cars.
The bombers used titadine, a kind of compressed dynamite also found in a bomb-laden van intercepted last month as it headed for Madrid, a source at Mr Aznar's office said. Officials blamed Eta then, too.
Eta has claimed responsibility for more than 800 deaths since it began fighting for independence for the Basque region in 1968.
Last night a letter purporting to come from al-Qaeda was sent to a London-based Arabic newspaper, al-Quds al-Arabi, yesterday claiming responsibility. "We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," it said.
Agencies