Death Underground

When the first section of Madrid's subway system was built 20 years ago, it was roundly damned by some Madrilenos as a piece of unnecessary civic pride in a city that could not afford it. During the past year and a half the subway had paid for itself many times over by serving as a bombproof shelter in whose underground platforms thousands of people took shelter from aerial bombs and high explosive shells. In one moment last week however Madrid's subway brought death to a substantial fraction of those it had saved.

At 7 a. m. one morning all Madrid trembled and shook. Within an hour a tight ring of Assault Guards was posted round the city's Ventas district, and a tighter censorship posted at the cable office. Not for three days did the world know what had happened. A single shell had struck a building on Genoa Street whose basement was used as a T.N.T. factory. The explosion blasted through to the Ventas station of the subway, on whose platform tons of munitions were stored. Two trains were entering the station at that instant. Only an immense crater 1,100 yards long, 220 yards wide remained to tell the tale. It was estimated that upwards of 700 Madrilenos will never be seen again in the flesh. Belief that sabotage was responsible for part of these deaths led to the arrest of 153 suspected Rightists.

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