Ten years after living through the horror of the Madrid train bombings, which she blames for a miscarriage, Adeniria Moreira says she thinks of her unborn baby every day and struggles to leave her home.
She had just boarded a train at El Pozo, the hardest-hit of the four Madrid rail stations struck by backpack bombs filled with dynamite and shrapnel, when it was ripped apart by an explosion.
“There were body parts everywhere, an arm over here, a head over there,” said Moreira, 48, who wore a scarf tied tightly around her neck as she sat in the living room of her well-kept apartment in Vallecas, a working-class neighborhood in southern Madrid. “There were people with blood coming out of their noses, out of their mouths. There were people without any clothes, who had no shoes.”
Photo: AFP
The early morning blasts on March 11, 2004 — claimed by militants who said they had acted on al-Qaeda’s behalf over Spain’s role in the US-led invasion of Iraq — killed 191 people and injured 1,800 more.
A decade on, many survivors like Moreira continue to struggle with the psychological trauma of their ordeal.
“I can go weeks and weeks without leaving home,” said Moreira, a nurse’s aid by training who moved to Spain from Brazil 16 years ago.
She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after the attacks and now takes pills for anxiety and depression.
“I can’t walk between two parked cars, I’m afraid that there is a bomb inside and there will be an explosion,” she said.
Moreira, who was three months pregnant at the time, was not injured in the bombing and doctors gave her the all clear at the time.
However, three weeks later, she felt contractions and went to a hospital where she learned that her fetus had died.
“I was in a state of shock. My husband took it really badly, he cried, cried, cried. I was hospitalized for three days. It was very hard,” said Moreira, who believes the emotional upset of the bombings caused her pregnancy to end. “I think of the baby I lost every day.”
Since then, she has been interned in a psychiatric hospital five times and has struggled to hold down a job.
Moreira’s husband, who works as a bus driver, helps her raise their 11-year-old daughter. Their eldest daughter, who is 26, now lives in Brazil.
Eloy Moran, who lost vision in his left eye and hearing in both ears in the attacks, also had to stop working after the bombings.
He suffered serious head injuries when an explosion struck the train he was on just before it reached Madrid’s Atocha station, leaving the tracks strewn with bodies.
“I felt unbearable pressure in my head, like it was going to explode like a balloon,” said Moran, 65, who wore a plaid cap and black coat as he sat by a statue in memory of the bombing victims outside the station at Alcala de Henares where he boarded the train.
He spent two weeks in hospital and when he returned to work as an office administrator at the Ministry of the Interior he found he could not concentrate for long and had difficulty sleeping.
After two years, he reluctantly admitted that he could no longer work and accepted early retirement.
“It was really upsetting. I really liked my job. I felt like I had worked so hard to get where I was and it all went to the garbage,” he said.
“I fell into a deep depression that I could not get out of,” added Moran, who said he took pills for anxiety for years after the attacks and has never again boarded a commuter train.
Spanish courts convicted 18 people over the bombings, with two top suspects each sentenced to nearly 43,000 years. Seven of the chief suspects killed themselves weeks after the attack as police closed in.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was