Princess Maria Teresa of Spain has died aged 86 after testing positive for coronavirus.

The princess, of the Bourbon-Parma Royal Family in Spain, passed away yesterday her younger brother, Prince Sixtus Henry of Bourbon-Parma, announced.

She was born in Paris, France on July 28, 1933 to parents, Prince Xavier and Madeleine de Bourbon, who had a total of six children.

The royals are members of the House of Bourbon-Parma which is a cadet branch of the Spanish royal family, descended from the French Capetian dynasty.

A cadet branch is created when a young member of a Royal Family, who is not the current heir, is granted lands and titles of his own.

Members of the family once ruled as King of Etruria and as Duke of Parma and Piacenza, Guastalla, and Lucca until 1859.

© Provided by Daily Mail Princess Maria Teresa de Bourbon Parme and her nephew Prince Jaime de Bourbon Parme arrive for the presentation of her book ion 2014

Princess Maria did not have any children of her own. But she is survived by a number of nieces and nephews, including Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Parma, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, Princess Margarita and Prince Jaime.

The news comes after it was revealed Prince Charles, 71, has a 'mild' form of the illness.

He is on the Balmoral estate with his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, who has tested negative and is without any symptoms of the virus, which has killed 435 and infected 8,200 more in the UK so far.

© Provided by Daily Mail Maria Teresa Of Bourbon Parma Wearing A Jacques Heim Evening Dress in her younger years

It comes as Spain registered a record number of coronavirus deaths in a single-day period with the army now being handed emergency powers to transfer bodies because undertakers are unable to cope.

The number of deaths from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours is 832, it emerged this morning, bringing the nation's death toll to 5,690 since the outbreak began.

Today's tally beats the previous Spanish record for a single day of 769 coronavirus which was recorded on Friday.

It puts Spain now firmly in second place as the worst-hit nation ahead of China with 3,295 in total.

© Provided by Daily Mail Spain has registered a new record number of coronavirus deaths in a single-day period with the army now being handed emergency powers to transfer bodies because undertakers can't cope. Pictured: Priest gives a response in front the coffin of a woman who died of coronavirus disease © Provided by Daily Mail The number of deaths from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours is 832, it emerged this morning. Pictured: Field hospital in Madrid

The number of new coronavirus cases registered in the past 24 hours is 8,000.

Spanish Ministry of Health figures show 72,248 people have been infected, 40,630 have needed to be hospitalised, 4,575 people have been admitted to intensive care and 12,285 people have been cured of the disease.

Only Italy's single-day death tally is worse than Spain's - with 969 dying there from coronavirus in the 24 hours between Thursday and Friday.

On Monday a second makeshift morgue is due to start functioning in Madrid after a retail centre ice rink where families paid six pounds a time to skate became its first stop-gap body drop because of the saturation funeral parlours were facing.

The new temporary morgue, known locally as the Donut because of the way it looks from the sky, was built to be Madrid's Institute of Forensic Medicine but never opened.

The figures comes after the army was given special powers to transfer bodies because of the saturation undertakers are facing.

< PREVIOUS SLIDE SLIDE 1 of 3 NEXT SLIDE > The number of deaths from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours is 832, it emerged this morning. The grim statistic means 5,690 people with the virus have now died in Spain © Provided by Daily Mail

In pictures: Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak around the world

Reaction from Spain's emergency health director Spain's emergency health director Fernando Simon claimed today: 'The disease is stabilising and we can say some areas of the country may have surpassed the peak, although we can't say the same at a national level.' Responding to overnight reports in Spanish media pointing to the likelihood the number of coronavirus deaths was higher than the official figures, he insisted: 'It's true we can't test all those people infected and there may be some that escape us. 'But Spain is making a great effort to be as transparent as possible.' He said the key at the moment was making sure intensive care units were not 'saturated' and avoiding a hospital collapse in the worst-affected areas. During questions from the press at a daily coronavirus he declined to specify which areas he believed may have surpassed the peak.

The sharp increase in the number of deaths caused by coronavirus has laid to bodies being left longer than normal.

The government gave soldiers temporary authorisation to fill the void and help alleviate the problem by publishing the new order in an official state bulletin today.

The Ministry of Health-issued order states: 'The Armed Forces that form part of the operation against Covid-19 are authorised to drive and transfer corpses at the request of the appropriate authorities.'

Health Minister Salvador Illa said: 'Special attention needs to be paid during this health crisis to the issue of the transfer of corpses, to properly manage the removal and conservation of bodies through accumulation and the absence of available funeral services.'

The task of removing coronavirus victims' bodies is expected to fall on Spain's military emergency unit called UME which has been at the forefront of the mass disinfecting of residential elderly care homes and other public areas.

The order is valid until mid-April but are expected to be extended if Spain's state of emergency goes from four weeks to six.

Spain's Defence Minister Margarita Robles told a Spanish TV programme earlier this week soldiers tasked with disinfecting the homes as part of the fight against coronavirus were discovering abandoned bodies.

She said: 'The army, during some visits, has seen elderly people absolutely abandoned, if not dead in their beds.

© Provided by Daily Mail The sharp increase in the number of deaths caused by coronavirus has laid to bodies being left longer than normal. Pictured: Members of the Emergency Military Unit © Provided by Daily Mail Spain is now the fourth worst effected country in the world. Pictured: Medical staff in Madrid transfer a patient in a wheelchair

The latest figures recording the rise in Spain's coronavirus death toll come after:

Spanish government forced to return 'faulty' coronavirus testing kits to ChinaHer comments have been criticised by senior nursing home workers who say the problem has been that undertakers were saturated by the number of deaths and could not cope.

Spain extended a nationwide lockdown on Thursday by a further 15 days to April 12 and said it was fighting a 'real war' over medical supplies to contain the death toll.

© Provided by Daily Mail

Health authorities are hoping it will soon become clear whether the lockdown is having the desired effect.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose wife is infected with the virus, previously said this is the country's most difficult moment since its 1936-39 civil war.

'Only the oldest, who knew the hardships of the civil war and its aftermath, can remember collective situations that were harsher than the current one.

'The other generations in Spain have never, ever had to face as a collective something so hard.'