THE Mayor of Melksham is glad to be back home after witnessing at close hand two recent disasters that shook the world.

Terri Welch, 63, was in Spain when the train bombs that killed 200 people went off, two weeks after holidaying in Morocco when a massive earthquake hit the country.

Cllr Welch was due to travel into Madrid to stay with English friends living in the capital days after the bombs went off.

She was in Andalusia when the explosions happened and immediately called her friends in Madrid.

She said: "I wouldn't have expected any of my friends to be in the south of the city but I was still worried. Thankfully they weren't involved."

She travelled to the capital, as planned, days after the bombings and saw first hand the affect the terrorism had on the Spanish people.

She described large candles placed in the city where people could go to say prayers and send their thoughts to the victims and their families.

Cllr Welch said the affects of the terrorist attacks reverberated around the whole country.

"It was like when Princess Diana died a sort of bemused 'this can't be happening'.

"It was like walking through snow. There was no sound in the streets, the people weren't around that you would normally see.

"There were people doing the necessities of life but there weren't the people standing on the streets talking."

The March 11 attacks saw 10 bombs go off on four trains in three stations during the busy morning rush hour.

Prime minister Tony Blair joined other world leaders at a memorial service held for the victims on Wednesday, as the people of Spain try to come to terms with the scale of the tragedy.

This experience came just two weeks after the mayor was on holiday in Morocco when an earthquake hit the north east of the country in the early hours of February 24.

The quake, measuring 6.5 on the Richter Scale, devastated rural areas around the city of Al Hoceima, killing 564 and leaving thousands more homeless.

Cllr Welch, who was staying in Marrakech, did not realise the quake had struck until three days later.

She said: "I didn't actually feel any of the movement of the earth at all and I wasn't following Moroccan TV. It wasn't until two or three days later that we realised the hotel TV had BBC World News."

Cllr Welch is hoping the disasters that seem to be following her around the world will stay away on her next trip.

She will join the mayors of the four other west Wiltshire towns in Polish twin town, Elblag in April, when they will be joining celebrations as the country joins the European Union.