- Troops have been deployed to the Cofrentes nuclear power plant, the Port of Valencia and the Alicante Airport, among other location in the Community
The Armed Forces have deployed 2,800 troops, 160 more than yesterday, as they help to fight the coronavirus, and are now operating in 82 towns, but none in the Basque Country.
Since yesterday (Saturday) they have expanded their deployment in Barcelona with an emergency camp at La Fira and are monitoring the Almaraz (Cáceres), Cofrentes (Valencia) and Trillo (Guadalajara) nuclear power plants.
This was announced by the Chief of the Defense Staff, General Miguel Ángel Villarroya, at the daily press conference held at the Moncloa Palace.
Villarroya explained that the Spanish military continue with their disinfection tasks at the Barcelona, Tenerife North, Tenerife South, Gran Canaria and Alicante Airports, as well as at the ports of Barcelona, Malaga, Valencia and Castellón.
They also continue to have an “active presence” in the AVE stations in Córdoba, Seville and Alicante, and continue to disinfect the Campos del Río prison (Murcia) and in other sites where “essential services” such as “judicial buildings, are located.”
HOSPITALS AND RESIDENCES
The general said that the Armed Forces are responsible for advising on logistics and the assembly of the Ifema field hospital facility that will provide more than 5,000 beds as well as support in Gregorio Marañón hospitals in Madrid and Gómez Ulla.
Villarroya, who was formerly Deputy Director of the European Air Group in High Wycombe, has also highlighted the support tasks being carried out by the military in the transfer of moderate patients between health centres and also between medicalised centres and hotels. He spoke of the “important deployment” that they are undertaking in the disinfecting of nursing homes which are one of the weakest sectors of the population.
He said there are soldiers disinfecting residences in Madrid, Alcalá de Henares, Antequera, Torrent, Benidorm, Borriana, Picanya, Aldaia, Onda, Massamagrell, Torrente, Manises, Tarazona, Lardero, Alcalá del Valle Fuenmayor, Benavente, Toro, Montamarta, Fuentesaúco, Torrejón de Ardoz and Soto del Fresno and of course Torrevieja and Orihuela.
“There are no weekends in war; every day is Monday,” he said. “Every day of effort means that there are a few thousand citizens who are not infected and many lives saved.”
“We have to see Spanish society as a team and we all have to be coordinated and perfectly focused on achieving our goal, which today is to defeat the coronavirus,” he concluded.
