Berta María Gutiérrez García

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Berta María Gutiérrez García caught the suburban train every day at El Pozo station. She was planning to refurbish the house she and her husband had bought in the Vallecas district. She had a daughter, Sara, aged six, and a sister, María José, with whom she shared a number of interests including aerobics.  She loved the little things in life, like the sea and going to her home town, Villanueva de Gómez, especially in fiestas and during the summer.

11 March 2004 fell on a Thursday. Early that morning, a number of terrorists with links to Al-Qaeda planted thirteen bombs on four suburban trains covering routes running through Madrid. Ten of the bombs exploded between 7.37 and 7.39 am, when the trains were at Atocha, El Pozo and Santa Eugenia stations and alongside Calle Téllez. 191 people were killed in the attack and around 1,500 were wounded. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Spanish history. On 3 April 2004, agents from the Special Operations Group (GEO) were about to enter an apartment in Leganés where the perpetrators of the attacks were believed to be hiding when the terrorists detonated twenty kilograms of explosives in an act of collective suicide. The ensuing blast killed one of the officers, bringing the total number of people killed by the 11 March bombers to 192.

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