An entertainment complex popular with families is to be turned into a temporary morgue as the number of coronavirus deaths continue to rise.
The Palacio de Hielo skating rink at Madrid's Ice Palace is to be used to house the dead before their bodies are buried or incinerated because of the saturation facing the city’s funeral parlours.
The decision was reached following talks between Madrid’s regional government, Spanish army chiefs and city hall officials.
Spain began its second week of a government-imposed lockdown with its worst coronavirus death toll in 24 hours - 462 people.
Health chiefs confirmed 2,182 people with the virus have now died in Spain and the number of coronavirus sufferers in intensive care stands at 2,355 - 570 more than on Sunday.
The number of confirmed cases nationwide was 33,089 at lunchtime on Monday.
Madrid is the worst-affected part of Spain, with 1,263 deaths and 10,575 cases.
The privately-run Ice Palace was closed as part of a government-ordered lockdown last week imposing restrictions on peoples’ movement and shutting restaurants, bars, theatres, cinema and other leisure complexes.
The popular attraction, normally open to the public from mid-September to the end of May, also has a 15-screen cinema, 24 bowling lanes and a shopping centre with restaurants.
City council sources quoted by Spanish media said the temperature of the ice made it the ideal place to avoid victims’ bodies from decomposing amid the growing difficulties of the Spanish capital’s funeral parlours to deal with the increasing number of dead.
One told news website El Espanol: “We know this is a very delicate situation but there was no other option. It’s a necessary reaction.
“Hospitals and crematoriums are doing as much as they can.”
Madrid’s IFEMA exhibition centre has already started functioning as a field hospital and is set to be treating 400 patients by the end of Tuesday.
