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| - Spain's Alicante airport reopened Thursday afternoon after a closure of nearly 24 hours because of a fire on the roof of the building, frustrating thousands of tourists heading for the Mediterranean coast. The airport "has gradually resumed operations" since 2 pm (1300 GMT), Spanish airport authority Aena said in a Tweet. Firefighters were still working on Thursday morning to extinguish the blaze on the roof of the building, which covered some 1,200 square meters (13,000 square feet). Authorities are still not sure what caused the fire to break out on Wednesday afternoon, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of passengers and personnel. The fire forced 46 flights which were due to land or depart from Alicante to be diverted to other Spanish airports in the region. On Wednesday 32 flights were affected by the blaze. Several passengers told Spanish media that they had to take taxis or buses to airports in Valencia, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) away, or Murcia, a distance of some 80 kilometres, to catch alternative flights. Spain's fifth largest passenger airport serves the eastern region of Valencia, which is home to several popular resorts such as Benidorm. It handled just under 14 million passengers last year. du-avl/ds/gd
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