Madrid , Spain ( CNN ) -- It was just before 8am on March 11 , 2004 and I was making breakfast at home , listening to Spain 's leading radio network . Suddenly there was a report of explosions at the Atocha train station downtown . The terrifying damage , we would later learn , had occurred about 20 minutes earlier : coordinated bomb explosions on four rush-hour trains that would leave 191 people dead and more than 1,800 wounded . But those initial hours were filled with confusion . I called CNN 's main news desk in Atlanta -- it was just before 2am there -- and said that a major tragedy appeared to be unfolding in Madrid . Soon after I was on air , and very quickly our camera crew was outside Atocha station , close to my home . Across town , in a neighborhood by the Santa Eugenia station -- where one of the trains exploded -- nine-year-old Vera de Benito watched her mother behaving as never before . Her father , a telephone installer , had boarded a train for Atocha station that day . He never returned home . `` The first image was my mother , hysterical , trying to call on the phone . I imagine she was trying to locate my father , '' says De Benito , who 's now 19 and studying journalism . `` I miss him so much . He 's the first person I think of in the morning and the last person I think of at night . '' The Madrid train bombings were the deadliest terror attack in western Europe since the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland in 1988 which killed 270 people . The terrorists in Madrid , the authorities later determined , carried bombs in sports bags and backpacks onto four commuter trains serving the east of the Spanish capital . And then they got off , leaving their deadly devices to explode onboard . De Benito says that she always tried to think of her father and look to the future when she was growing up . `` I 'd rather focus on him being proud , seeing me achieve my goals , '' she says . `` That 's why I am always setting higher targets . '' She 's already an intern in the newsroom of SER radio , the same station I was listening to on that fateful morning . The attacks proved highly political in Spain . General elections had already been scheduled for just three days later and , in a surprise result , the ruling conservatives lost to the opposition socialists . The Spanish courts later convicted 14 Islamic militants for their roles in the bombings , along with four Spaniards for trafficking in explosives used in the attacks . A further seven key Islamic suspects blew themselves up three weeks after the train attacks as police closed in on their hideout in a Madrid suburb . Initial theories that the Basque terrorist group ETA had carried out the attack were later discredited by the police and international terrorism experts who blamed Islamic militants . But the alleged ETA role in the bombings has become an ongoing conspiracy theory still heard in some quarters in Spain , adding to the polarization seen on the anniversaries of the attacks . This week the main victim groups are expected to take part at the same event for the first time in years . In the past political differences have sometimes divided the organizations -- but they will unite for a Roman Catholic mass at Almudena Cathedral , to be attended by King Juan Carlos and prime minister Mariano Rajoy . As usual the victim groups will also observe their own , separate commemorations . Vera de Benito did n't ride public transportation for years after her father 's death -- until she got fed up . `` Why is a terrorist group going to keep me from riding a train , after they 've already taken away a fundamental pillar of my life ? '' she asks . `` All the bad things already happened to me . Nothing worse could occur . And if it does , I will get through it , '' she added . `` I have to look happily toward the future , because if not , I 'd go crazy . ''
On March 11 , 2004 , bombs on four trains in Madrid left hundreds dead and wounded . The attacks took place near the home of CNN 's Al Goodman , who recalls the incident . Father of Vera de Benito , aged nine at the time , had boarded one of the ill-fated trains . This week the main victim groups are expected to unite at a mass for the first time in years .