The smell of scorched diesel was still discernible on the waterfront at Kusadasi on Sunday, though the road where the minibus exploded had been strewn with red and white carnations.
The mid-morning blast in the popular Aegean resort — possibly the work of a suicide bomber — killed a British woman, an Irish holidaymaker and three Turks.
The Briton was named on Sunday as Helen Bennett (21) from Spennymoor, Durham. She had been travelling in a Dolmus, one of the hundreds of minibuses that ferry tourists and locals to and from the beaches.
The attacks on Saturday appear to mark a sharp escalation in a campaign by a breakaway group, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, who are fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-east Turkey.
That afternoon the resort was quiet. with many tourists staying inside their hotel compounds for fear of further attacks. On Sunday morning the British ambassador, Peter Westmacott, visited the scene and talked to the survivors in hospital.
The Foreign Office in London issued a short statement on behalf of Bennett’s family: ”We are truly saddened by the tragedy that has struck our family. We are grateful for the work and support of hospital staff.”
By Sunday afternoon the crowds were drifting back to the seaside promenade at Kusadasi. Men were fishing on the breakwater, and a beach was crammed with sunbathers and families.
British holidaymakers who escaped to the Aegean, avoiding the aftermath of the London bombing, were confronted with a grim and familiar image on the front of most Turkish papers: a bus ripped apart by a terrorist bomb.
On a bench not far from the site of the blast, Brian and Sheila Richardson from Newcastle were relaxing in the evening sun. Like those caught in the Turkish bus bomb, they were on a Thomas Cook tour.
”We were on a day trip away, but we heard about it at around 2pm when someone got a text message from a relative back in England,” said Richardson (51) ”We are hoping it’s a one-off thing.
”We were going to go to London this week for a holiday, but we came here instead. People are now asking where our next destination is, so they can avoid it. The day before the bomb we’d taken a Dolmus on exactly the same route.
”People here are very laid back about it. Apparently there was another bomb here in April. If I’d heard about that I might have thought twice about coming here.”
His wife Sheila (49) said: ”We haven’t used the Dolmus buses [since] yesterday [Sunday], we’ve walked instead. We’re going to go away on several more day trips.”
Five members of Bennett’s family were in the vehicle when it was devastated by a bomb at around 10.45am on Saturday.
The Irish victim has been identified as Tara Whelan (17) a schoolgirl from Kilmeaden, Co Waterford. One of the Turks who died was a 21-year-old local woman who had recently become engaged. A total of 11 people were injured.
The injured Britons have been named as Michael Aspinall, Adam Megoran, Toni and Sam Punshon and Stephen Stables. Most of them are understood to be receiving medical treatment at hospitals in the nearby city of Izmir.
There was speculation that the attack was a suicide bombing. But the Turkish media later reported that the device had been planted by a 16-year-old girl, who asked to get off the bus shortly before it was destroyed. Some reports said her severed torso had been recovered from the wreckage; others that she fled unharmed.
Kusadasi is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Turkey for British and Irish package holidays.
The scene at the roadside where the bomb exploded is unlikely to change that. Police tape demarcated an impromptu memorial.
The Union flag, Irish tricolour and Turkish star and crescent fluttered side by side; a wilting bouquet of flowers wrapped in the Irish flag had a note attached: ”May God’s light shine on all of you, rest in peace.”
The Foreign Office said its advice to tourists had not substantially changed since the bombing. It does not advise people to avoid Turkey, but warns that some areas are under the threat of terrorism. – Guardian Unlimited Â