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THEME PARK

Civil War bomb detonated at Spain’s newest theme park

Police explosives experts have destroyed a Spanish Civil War-era bomb found at the building site of a historical theme park in central Spain, emergency services said Thursday.

Published: 5 September 2019 13:56 CEST
Civil War bomb detonated at Spain's newest theme park
El Sueño de Toledo opened on August 30th. Photo: puydufouespana.com

The bomb was detected Wednesday at the Puy du Fou amusement park under construction near Toledo, the ancient Spanish capital near Madrid, and was safely detonated, regional emergency services said in a tweet.

“No injuries or property damage were suffered,” it added.   

The theme park being set up on a 160-hectare site on the outskirts of Toledo is the first to be built outside of France by Puy du Fou, which already operates one in western France that is known for its ostentatious historical re-enactments featuring actors, stunt performers and epic fireworks.   

Total investment is to reach €242 million ($266 million) over 10 years, and 690 direct jobs are expected to be created in 2021 when the park is scheduled to open.

Last week about 4,000 spectators watched a premiere of the park's show, which traced Spanish history since the 13th century on a five-hectare stage complete with an artificial lake.

The discovery of explosives from Spain's 1936-39 Civil War is not uncommon.   

Last month, police experts destroyed another Civil War-era bomb found in the sea off one of Barcelona's popular beaches, which had to be evacuated.

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FRANÇO

Spain to exhume bodies of civil war victims at Valley of the Fallen

The Spanish government on Tuesday approved a special fund to exhume graves at the Valley of the Fallen, where thousands of victims of the Spanish Civil War and dictator Francisco Franco are buried.

Published: 31 March 2021 09:30 CEST
Spain to exhume bodies of civil war victims at Valley of the Fallen
Women hold up pictures of their fathers and relatives, who were condemned to death during Franco’s dictatorship. Photo: OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP

The Socialist government said it had set aside €665,000 ($780,000) to exhume some 33,000 victims whose remains lie behind a vast basilica near Madrid.

Franco was buried in the basilica when he died in 1975 but his remains were removed in 2019 and transferred to a discreet family plot on the outskirts of the capital.

Government spokesperson Maria Jesus Montera told reporters that more than 60 families and international institutions had called for the exhumation of the victims to give relatives who suffered during the civil war and Franco’s dictatorship “moral reparation”.

Campaigners estimate more than 100,000 victims from the war and its aftermath remain buried in unmarked graves across Spain —- a figure, according to Amnesty International, only exceeded by Cambodia.

Human remains discovered during exhumation works carried out by the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory of Valladolid, in a mass grave where the bodies of hundreds of people were dumped during the Spanish civil war. Photo by CESAR MANSO/AFP

Built between 1940 and 1958 partly by the forced labour of political prisoners, the imposing basilica and the mausoleum of the Valley of the Fallen was initially intended for those who had fought for Franco.

But in 1959 the remains of many Republican opponents were moved there from cemeteries and mass graves across the country without their families being informed.

The crypts and ossuaries where some of the victims are buried are inaccessible as they were walled off at the time.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made the rehabilitation of the victims of the Franco era one of his priorities since coming to power in 2018.

As well as the Valley of the Fallen, his government is also focusing on identifying remains founds in mass graves across Spain.

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