Closure ordered over hygiene

The Community of Madrid ordered the Sol station on the Metro network closed for Friday, 16 October, so crews could carry out 'urgent cleaning and safety work' around the housing protest camp in Puerta del Sol. Regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso announced the decision and said the closure had been requested by the occupational risk prevention service and the unions. Metro de Madrid confirmed on X that trains will not stop at Sol, and the sources give no date for reopening. Police had already closed the station's access points on Wednesday, 14 October, because of large crowds linked to teacher protests and the camp at the city's kilometre zero, according to EL MUNDO.

Ayuso put the situation bluntly:

“Right now there are unsanitary conditions inside.”

Ammonia readings behind the decision

The regional government first raised the alarm on Thursday, 15 October, over 'serious health conditions' at the station, caused by urine, excrement and other organic waste piling up in wells and ventilation access points. The warning rests on an environmental report from Laboratorios Himalaya, issued on Wednesday, 14 October, which the regional councillor for housing, transport and infrastructure, Jorge Rodrigo, sent to the central government's delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, in a new letter. The laboratory found ammonia, amines and other organic compounds, with ammonia reaching up to 80% of the daily exposure limit value of 14 mg/m3 in the ventilation wells and porticos. It links the readings to the bacterial breakdown of urea and warns that such accumulation in poorly ventilated spaces can produce potentially harmful concentrations. The report calls for the waste to be removed urgently and the installations disinfected.

City council sanctions and clean-up costs

Madrid's city council says police have been issuing fines around the camp. Deputy mayor Inma Sanz said on Friday that about 180 sanctions had been imposed, roughly 76 for alcohol or drug consumption and more than a hundred for cleanliness offences. Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida, speaking in an interview on Cuatro, put the number at about 200 and said some people had been caught urinating in the street or at the Metro entrance. He defended the closure:

“This is not closed on a whim, it is closed because there is an undeniable reality.”

Sanz said investigators are trying to identify people who used the fountain basin at the foot of the Carlos III statue as a swimming pool on Thursday, 15 October, using the square's video surveillance cameras. Officers are also examining vandalism to the statues of Carlos III, the Bear and the Strawberry Tree, and the Mariblanca. The city intends to charge the clean-up and restoration costs to the camp's organisers once the camp is removed:

“We are going to try to see it through to the end and charge the costs to those who are doing this serious harm to all Madrileños.”

Political dispute over the delegate

Sanz accused the government delegate, Francisco Martín, of 'playing with the safety and physical integrity' of Madrid residents through what she called his connivance with the camp, and warned that failing to act could carry serious criminal consequences. She said the city would start legal action if he did not respond to its formal requirement within the month he has to reply. Miguel Ángel García Martín, the regional councillor for the presidency, justice and local administration, said Martín, who had not been placed on the PSOE lists for Madrid, should act as a delegate with clear powers, and called for his resignation. Ayuso blamed Pedro Sánchez for leaving the city 'bursting' and 'clogged', and said streets and shops around the square were empty, ambulances struggled to pass, and journalists had been attacked. Sanz's deadline for the delegate's reply falls within the month he has to answer the city's requirement.