Spain marks first anniversary of train bombing in Madrid

At rail stations targeted in the country's worst-ever terrorist attack, people huddled and shed tears as memories of the blasts returned. Others left notes that tried to put pain into words.

"Who will give me back my will to live, which died here a year ago? I don't know," read a letter posted on a wall at El Pozo station the deadliest of four scenes of carnage on March 11, 2004. It was signed by Susana, a woman who said she was injured when bombs gutted a double-decker train.

A total of 650 churches around the Madrid metropolitan area joined the five-minute tribute that began at 7:37 a.m., when the first of 10 dynamite-loaded backpacks detonated on four crowded rush-hour commuter trains. al-Qaeda-linked militants claimed responsibility.

"It really could have happened to any one of us. That is the truth," said Victoria Martinez Montes, a 70-year-old retiree, standing outside the Church of Saint Teresa on a clear, chilly morning in Spain's capital.