MADRID — Madrid’s ice-skating rink is now being used as a makeshift morgue given the rapid increase in deaths in the Spanish capital owing to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Security forces guarded the outside of the Palacio de Hielo complex on Madrid’s north-eastern outskirts Tuesday as funeral service vans arrived and entered the building underground car park.
Madrid city authorities took up the rink’s offer to use the 1,800 square-meter (2,153 square-yard) center after the city’s municipal funeral service said it could take no more coronavirus bodies until it restocked with protective equipment and material.
Madrid is one of the hardest hit of Spain’s 17 regions with some 1,300 deaths, approximately half the national total.
