MADRID, Spain – A shoe box-sized bomb exploded next to a television re-transmitter near the northern city of Bilbao after a telephone warning in the name of the Basque separatist group ETA, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. No one was injured, he said.
The spokesman said a person had phoned an emergency services number claiming to speak on ETA's behalf, warning that a bomb was to explode at 10:00 a.m. at the Arostegi re-transmitter, just south of the port city.
Police found a cardboard box by a window at the station and it exploded at around 12:00 p.m. when a defusing robot approached it, causing damage to the building and the robot.
The station was on a wooded hillside, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity in keeping with government rules.
The bomb contained about 6 1/2 pounds of explosives, the spokesman said.
ETA has killed more than 800 people since the late 1960s in a campaign of shootings and bombings. It seeks an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwest France.
The group ended a unilateral cease-fire in June and has since killed two Spanish police officers and carried out several small bombings.
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