A routine Saturday afternoon in Madrid’s Vallecas district was shattered by a sudden blast, leaving 21 people injured and a nation once again grappling with the unsettling reality of its own vulnerability. While emergency services are hard at work at the moment, scrambling to determine the exact cause of the cafe explosion, the immediate, visceral reaction across Spain is one of anxiety.
If the investigation points away from terrorism, it will likely point toward a different, more insidious crisis: urban decay and infrastructural neglect. Gas leaks, faulty electrical work, and aging building frameworks are silent killers in major cities worldwide.
More details to come later….