A terrified 17-year-old JFS pupil has described how only a chance meeting meant she was not walking on Las Ramblas at the time of the terror attack which killed 13 people and injured more than 100.  

Rebecca Herman, from Radlett, told the JC that she and seven friends, on holiday in the Catalan city, were due to dine at the Maccabi kosher restaurant on the street where a terrorist drove a van into crowds of tourists at 5pm local time yesterday.

The van came to a halt outside the restaurant where Rebecca and her friends would have been sitting.

She said: “We meant to go but we were delayed. We met an Israeli event promoter on the beach. He kept talking to us so we were running late.

“We had returned to our hotel and were about to leave for the restaurant when we heard sirens and all the police cars and ambulances from our hotel. It was a near-miss.

“After that one of my friends’ dads rang to tell her what it was.

“We just stayed in the hotel last night. We were told to stay in and lock our doors and windows. It was terrifying.”

Ms Herman said she and her friends have visited Las Ramblas every day since they arrived in Barcelona on Tuesday.

She said tourists and residents in Barcelona today have tried to “carry on with their lives”, and that the atmosphere in the city is “not too bad”.