Bomb Defused at Chile Song Festival

Guerrillas planted a bomb Saturday in the basement of the hotel headquarters of the Vina del Mar International Song Festival, but it was discovered and safely detonated elsewhere, police said.

The bomb, containing 35 pounds of explosives, was in a box in the trunk of a stolen car that had been left in the underground garage of the Hotel O’Higgins this afternoon.

An anonymous caller to the hotel warned that a bomb would go off in two hours. As guests were being cleared from the building, police found the device and carried it to a dry river bed, where it was defused.

The hotel incident followed a week of guerrilla violence against the military-backed government of President Augusto Pinochet. On Wednesday, 16 policemen were wounded in a bomb attack on their bus. And in raids against power facilities, the central zone of the country was blacked out.