María Teresa Tudanca Hernández

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A photo of María Teresa Tudanca, sitting seriously injured against a wall at Atocha station was widely published in the media following the 11 March attacks. She suffered a severe traumatic brain injury and died 18 days later at the Doce de Octubre Hospital. She lived in Alcalá de Henares with her husband and her 26-year-old son. From there he travelled each day by train to the bank branch where she worked. She loved historical literature and spent her commuting time reading.

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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