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Agence France-Presse

Markel Artabe had just finished his shift as a waiter in Cambrils and was heading off for an ice-cream when he heard shots: only a few hours after the carnage in Barcelona, the Catalan coast was suffering another attack.
“Between midnight and 12.30am we were on the promenade by the beach,” said the 20-year-old, wearing shorts and a sky-blue polo shirt, still shaken after the drama.
“Then we heard shots and thought ‘it must be fireworks’ ... But it was gunshots,” said the waiter in the seaside resort 120km south of Barcelona in the northeastern region of Catalonia.
According to a spokesman for the regional government “suspected terrorists driving an Audi A3 apparently knocked over several people before encountering” a police patrol, and then “the shooting began”.
At least six civilians and a policeman were injured when the vehicle slammed into the crowd. One of the civilians injured is in critical condition, emergency services said on Twitter.
The five occupants of the car were killed, the Catalan police said.

Police had earlier said officers had killed “four suspected terrorists.” The fifth died from his wounds.
“It was bang, bang, bang. Shouting, more shouting. I threw myself onto the ground on the beach,” said another waiter, 21-year-old Joan Marc Serra Salinas, in a restaurant where witnesses to the attack had gathered.
“From what people are saying here, those who carried out [the attack] were people of my age.”
World leaders condemn terrorist attack in Barcelona
Markel, the other waiter, told AFP he saw someone who appeared to be a foreigner lying on the ground “with a gunshot to the head. His friends were crying out ‘help’”, he said, although the authorities have not reported any such death.
“I also saw dead bodies that seemed to be terrorists because they were wearing explosive belts.”
Cambrils mayor Cami Mendoza noted the “speed and efficiency” of the Catalan police response, at an impromptu press briefing in the street at about 5am.

The town, like others in the region, was on high alert as the police were hunting the driver of the van in the Barcelona attack, in which 13 people were killed and which was claimed by Islamic State. Police helicopters flew over the town throughout the night.
Terror in Spain: five wearing suicide belts shot dead, hours after Barcelona van attack kills 13 pedestrians
“We were appalled. It was a long and difficult night,” Mendoza said, but gave no details of the attack to journalists, who were behind a security cordon and prevented from approaching the seafront.
Hand in hand, two Spaniards, Rey Perry, 43, and Rocio Ordonez, 26, could not understand how Camrbils could experience such violence, as it’s “a quiet tourist place for families, where many walk around with children”.
The sun had not even come up but the mayor sought to reassure people: “The situation is under control. In a few hours Cambrils will be back to normal.”


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Terror attacks in Spain

Five dead as quiet seaside resort of Cambrils emerges from a terrifying night

Policemen check the area after police killed five attackers in Cambrils near Tarragona. Photo: AFP

TOPSHOT - A policeman stands by a car involved in a terrorist attack in Cambrils, a city 120 kilometres south of Barcelona, on August 18, 2017. 'Alleged terrorists' drove into pedestrians in the Spanish seaside resort of Cambrils early August 18 before being shot dead by security forces, just hours after a similar attack in nearby Barcelona. / AFP PHOTO / LLUIS GENE

Policemen check a car involved in a terrorist attack in Cambrils, a city 120 kilometres south of Barcelona, on August 18, 2017. Drivers have ploughed on August 17, 2017 into pedestrians in two quick-succession, separate attacks in Barcelona and another popular Spanish seaside city, leaving 13 people dead and injuring more than 100 others. In the first incident, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, a white van sped into a street packed full of tourists in central Barcelona on Thursday afternoon, knocking people out of the way and killing 13 in a scene of chaos and horror. Some eight hours later in Cambrils, a city 120 kilometres south of Barcelona, an Audi A3 car rammed into pedestrians, injuring six civilians -- one of them critical -- and a police officer, authorities said. / AFP PHOTO / LLUIS GENE

‘The whole street started to run, screaming’: carnage and confusion, when terror visited Las Ramblas

Victims are strewn on the ground near Las Ramblas in Barcelona, after a suspected terrorist attack by a man who ploughed a van through crowds of tourists. Photo: Reuters

Forensic workers stand near a dead person at the scene after a van crashed into pedestrians near the Las Ramblas avenue in central Barcelona, Spain August 17, 2017. REUTERS/Giselle Loots MANDATORY CREDIT. SPAIN OUT.

The van who ploughed into the crowd, killing at least 13 people and injuring around 100 others is towed away from the Rambla in Barcelona on August 18, 2017. A driver deliberately rammed a van into a crowd on Barcelona's most popular street on August 17, 2017 killing at least 13 people before fleeing to a nearby bar, police said. Officers in Spain's second-largest city said the ramming on Las Ramblas was a "terrorist attack". The driver of a van that mowed into a packed street in Barcelona is still on the run, Spanish police said. / AFP PHOTO / Josep LAGO

EDS NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT - Injured are helped on a long stretch of pedestrian sidewalk after a white van jumped the sidewalk in the historic Las Ramblas district of Barcelona, Spain, crashing into a summer crowd of residents and tourists Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017. According to witnesses the white van swerved from side to side as it drove into tourists and residents. (EL MUNDO via AP)

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