A car bomb wrecked a car park at Madrid's international airport today, injuring at least 19 people in an attack the government said smashed a nine-month-old ceasefire by ETA Basque guerrillas.
One person was still missing after the explosion which brought down several concrete floors of the multi-storey car park at about 9 am, an hour after the first of three telephone warnings of an attack at Barajas Airport's ultra-modern Terminal Four, officials said.
The attack took place on a day Barajas was crowded with holiday season travellers.
"I want to firmly condemn this attack, the attack ends nine months without ETA violence, it breaks ETA's permanent ceasefire," Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told a news conference.
He did not say whether it meant the end of a peace process started by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in June to end ETA's four-decade armed struggle for independence of the Basque Country in which the group killed over 800 people.
An end to the peace process would be a major blow to Zapatero, a Socialist.
Rescue workers were still searching for a man who had driven to the terminal to pick up a passenger. If the man is found dead, it would be the first time ETA has killed in more than three years.
There were minor injuries to at least 19 people including two police officers and a taxi driver, emergency services said, adding that another seven people had been attended for panic and psychological reactions.
