Work is nearing completion on a 1,000-bed field hospital on the outskirts of Swansea.
New pictures inside show completed wards ready to accept patients. The first phase of construction is finished and the hospital, which could be used beyond the end of the coronavirus pandemic, was passed over to Swansea Bay University Health Board, which commissioned the project, on Thursday, May 7.
At a virtual cabinet meeting of Swansea Council at the end of April, support for funding the hospital, which could cost up to £15 million, was unanimous and it has taken shape in a matter of weeks.
The council's chief finance officer, Ben Smith, said the authority was in a more fortunate position than the health board in that it had "sovereign powers" to undertake borrowing and use money held in reserve to support "rapid spend and deployment".
Mr Smith said the council expected to get a full refund of its outlay, which is from a pot of money set aside to finance borrowing costs for the new indoor arena.
Built in a 1950s factory building at Bay Studios in Fabian Way, the new hospital is the size of several football fields and was built by the council's building services along with contractors Kier and TRJ.
The massive building project was undertaken in conjunction with the health board - another field hospital has also been built by Neath Port Talbot Council at Llandarcy Academy of Sport, Llandarcy.
The field hospital in Fabian Way is "likely" to be needed at some point given the mortality rate of coronavirus, even if it wasn't needed at the moment according to Swansea Council leader Rob Stewart.
Mr Stewart said: "I would like to place on record my thanks for the outstanding work that has been done in effectively building a new hospital from scratch in record breaking time.
"I've said that this was a war time effort and that's exactly what it was. Everyone involved has done us proud in what they have created.
"All of us hope that we will not need a single bed of this facility during this crisis because we would all rather that the surge hospitals are not needed, but unfortunately, given the tragic death rates we are seeing across the UK, it is likely that at some point in the future it will be."
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The true scale of the achievement at the Bay Studios field hospital is made clear by the amount of construction work required to deliver the project in such a short space of time.
The facility's electric cabling would stretch more than 700 kilometres, the distance from Swansea to Edinburgh, if it was laid out and the paint used would be enough to cover nine football pitches.
It's been five weeks since construction started at the site where a new waterproof building has been built within the existing structure to create 1,000 beds with heating, lighting, new floors, cooling systems and structural false ceilings.
A further eighteen people were reported to have died with coronavirus in Wales on Thursday, bringing the total number of deaths in Wales to 1,062.
There are 677 hospital patients with confirmed coronavirus in Wales, and a further 343 suspected cases that haven't been confirmed with a test.
Around 75 patients who had Covid-19 are being discharged from Welsh hospitals every day and all health boards in Wales are at green or level one status.
