In Puerta del Sol there are three wells that connect to the Metro ventilation system. Everyone is covered by the camping. In one of the four entrances to the most famous station in Spain, in the lobby that leads to Calle Mayor, the level of ammonia detected is between 36 and 77 times higher than in the air circulating outside. The Community of Madrid closed the stop yesterday and will not reopen it until further notice.
It will only recover activity if it is possible to clean from the surface the ducts affected by the "chemical contamination" caused by the "accumulation of urine, excrement and waste in the wells, with stagnant liquid and foam at the bottom."
"Until it is cleaned, it does not open," summarizes an authoritative voice from the Community of Madrid to confirm that the Sol station has become the political battering ram with which the administrations battle in the war over camping.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso has demanded by land, sea and air that the Government Delegation remove the campers. He has requested more police presence, has demanded stricter capacity control in the square in the face of crowds and has denounced the heritage disaster that the protesters are causing at kilometer zero. All in vain.
Ultimatum to the Government
Now, with a very tough expert report and new data in hand, the Community of Madrid issues an ultimatum to the Government to vacate Puerta del Sol as soon as possible in the face of the "biological risk" that threatens both passengers and staff of the suburban.
Some 60,000 users use the Metro facilities in Sol every day, slightly more than the 56,000 who do the same with Cercanías. The Government, however, has decided to maintain this service and the trains will continue to stop in the square. "No health problems have been detected in the facilities," say sources from the Government Delegation.
Late yesterday the specialists began the first disinfection work, which ended at two in the morning.
Because the report on hygienic risk that Metro manages, and to which this newspaper has had access, warns of the seriousness of the situation in the basement of the central square. Furthermore, it expressly establishes that the service should not be resumed until there are "objective and documented guarantees that health and safety conditions have been reestablished."
"There is an active and uncontrolled focus" in the station's wells and ducts, the experts warn, and as a consequence "the air received" by the facility "is not clean." The "decomposing organic matter" means that the wells "have to be treated as confined spaces", and "the mixture of irritants is at the limit" in one of them.
"Urine, feces and stagnant water are a reservoir of biological agents and a source of food and water for rodents," says the analysis, which "obliges" the company to carry out "deratization campaigns."
High levels of ammonia
All of this, concludes the experts' study, now directly affects those who work in the facilities and the users who pass through the busiest station on the Metro network every day.
"The pollution has reached the traveler area," it is emphasized. Specifically, there are high levels of ammonia and amines in all the lobbies of the suburban station. Cleaning it with bleach, by the way, can be counterproductive: "Hypochlorite reacts with urine and ammonia, and forms chloramines, a documented cause of chemical pneumonitis."
The diagnosis shows the level of degradation of the Puerta del Sol environment. The specialists, explain sources familiar with the operation, would need to attack the contaminant from the opening of the wells and sewage of the square, and not from the underground.
To do so, it would be mandatory to completely vacate the campsite, since "the removal of liquids and sludge, the handling of organic waste, the movement of contaminated materials and certain cleaning techniques can cause splashes, the release of chemical substances and the generation of potentially contaminated aerosols." That is to say, there is an added risk for those who stay and spend the night in the stores at kilometer zero.
Hence the threat set by the Community: Sol will not operate again until the Metro ventilation network can be "disinfected and deratized." And for that the square must be clear.
