Plea for calm after Spanish blast

Holidaymakers and local residents were evacuated before the blast

MADRID, Spain -- Spain's tourism chief is urging visitors to be calm after powerful car bomb exploded in a tourist resort on Saturday.

Police believe the bomb, which forced the evacuation of two hotels at the seaside resort of Salou, was planted by Basque separatists.

Thirteen people, including two Civil Guard officers, were treated for minor cuts and anxiety attacks, police said.

Police said 824 people, including many British and Italian tourists, were rushed out of the hotels and apartments after police received a call just before the blast warning that a bomb would go off in an open-air car park in front of one of the hotels.

Police said the caller claimed to be speaking on behalf of ETA, a separatist group which has killed more than 800 people since 1968. It regularly targets Spain's tourism sector.

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The car that detonated was loaded with some 110 pounds of dynamite, police said.

About four hours later, those evacuated -- many still in their sleeping clothes -- were allowed to go return.

Visiting the scene, tourism secretary-general Juan Jose Guemes urged calm among travelers and said he did not believe ETA's campaign would affect tourism.

Spain is one of the world's top three tourist destinations along with France and the United States. Salou, located just south of the Mediterranean port city of Barcelona, is one of the country's most popular summer resorts.

Earlier this year, ETA warned tourists to stay away from Spain, as it would be targeting popular destinations. So far it is blamed for more than half a dozen blasts in tourist areas.

"The attitude of people seems to be quite resilient -- they're not going to have their holidays disrupted by this," Kimberley Kay, spokeswoman for Britain's Lunn Poly chain of travel agents, told The Associated Press.

On Saturday, the UK Foreign Office warned British tourists in Spain to be "aware that future attacks may not carry warnings and bombs may explode prematurely."

Spain is Britain's top tourist destination, with some 12 million people heading for the country each year.

The foreign office statement emphasised that the chances of being caught up in a terrorist outrage were low but acknowledged that "there is still a possibility of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

On Thursday police defused two bombs found in a northern coastal city following a warning call. A day earlier, another two explosive devices bearing the hallmark of ETA interrupted Spain's high-speed rail service in the south. No one was injured.

ETA, whose name stands for Basque Homeland and Liberty, has been fighting to win independence for Basque regions in northern Spain and southwestern France for 33 years.

It has killed 35 people since January 2000, including 12 so far this year.