Families escape as bomb hits Spanish police barracks

Nearly 40 people were injured today when a van packed with explosives was detonated outside a Civil Guard barracks in the city of Burgos in northern Spain.

Basque separatist terrorist movement ETA was immediately blamed, amid fears the group was planning an escalation of its campaign.

Thirty-eight people, members of the paramilitary police force and their families, were injured, mainly by flying glass. The blast caused extensive damage to the 12-storey building in the cathedral city, a popular tourist destination. No warning was given.

The van, which had been stolen in France, was left at the back of the block, next to married quarters where guards and their families were sleeping when it exploded at 4am local time.

The blast came only days after security forces throughout Spain were alerted by French police who had discovered plans by ETA to bring three recently stolen vehicles loaded with explosives across the frontier.

The discovery, made after two leading members of the terror organisation were arrested on the French side of the border this month, sparked fears that ETA was planning to bomb tourist targets on the Spanish costas.

Regional government official Jaime Mateu said: "It is a miracle that nobody was killed or more seriously injured."

The group was at its most active in the Seventies, when it killed an average of 100 people a year.