Two women whose apartment block overlooks the main railway line into Madrid described the dreadful scene they witnessed yesterday."I heard the first blast and rushed out on to my balcony. Immediately there was another even larger explosion, and I saw the carriage being literally thrown into the air. I saw bodies and pieces of wreckage flying and landing on the track," said Cristina, weeping hysterically. Her neighbour, Maribel Alonso, also rushed on to her balcony after the blasts. Jane Walker reports from Madrid.
"We could see bodies on the lines. One man was lying there almost naked. His clothes had been blown off. His body was all black, and he was obviously dead. I thought the young boy lying next to him was dead, too, but then he moved his arm. I don't know what happened to him afterwards.
"When the emergency services arrived they called for blankets to cover the dead and injured and for water.
"We all threw blankets down to them and took them bottles of water. We couldn't reach the track to help because there is a high wall between our building and the railway lines."
Another of their neighbours died after suffering a heart attack from the shock.
Hospitals and emergency services were immediately put on full crisis alert. Unfortunately they have had many years of experience in coping with similar attacks, although none as horrific as yesterday's.
Routine operations and clinics were suspended and wards cleared to make way for casualties. Off-duty doctors, nurses, police and all emergency services reported, and hospitals in the area around Madrid offered their facilities if the capital's hospitals could take no more patients.
Every ambulance in the Madrid region was called to the scene of the blasts.
Private cars, vans and even city buses and street-cleaning trucks carried the less seriously injured to the hospitals.
Enrique Sánchez, an experienced ambulance-driver, was shocked by what saw at Atocha station, the city's largest.
"I have been driving ambulances for over 20 years, and I have never seen anything like it," he said.