Toy car explosion kills woman, injures 2 boys

Posted: Tuesday, August 21, 2001

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain (AP) - A toy car exploded Monday, killing a 62-year-old woman and severely injuring the toddler who was playing with it, authorities said.

The explosion was initially thought to be caused by an explosive device, suggesting the work of a Basque separatist group that routinely detonates car bombs in the region.

But authorities later said no trace of explosives had been found during preliminary forensic tests. A police spokesman denied a report by the national news agency Efe that the toy contained a small amount of gunpowder.

The spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the toy car was slightly larger than a cellular phone and may have been powered by a combustible liquid such as gasoline.

The 16-month-old toddler got the toy at a bar-restaurant located in the old quarter of the city, a haven for youth gangs sympathetic to the armed separatist group ETA. He brought the toy to his family's vehicle, where it blew up.

The toddler was rushed to a hospital and treated for severe burns and head injuries. The dead woman was identified as Maria Francisca Araunzetamurgil, his grandmother. The boy's brother was slightly injured.

The boy's aunt told police she gave him the toy after it had been abandoned by other people in her restaurant.

ETA has been blamed for 12 killings this year. It has killed some 800 people in its 33-year violent campaign to carve out an independent Basque homeland from a region straddling northern Spain and southwest France.

ETA is a Basque-language acronym for Basque Homeland and Freedom.