Elderly people have been found abandoned and dead in their beds by soldiers in Spain who were drafted in to help the country fight its coronavirus outbreak, the country's defence ministry has said.

The military had been called up to help disinfect care homes in Spain, which has one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in Europe and has reported more than 2,600 deaths from the disease.

Margarita Robles, the Spanish defence minister, said the government would not tolerate mistreatment of older people in retirement homes during the crisis and Spanish prosecutors said an investigation had been launched into the incident.

“The army, during certain visits, found some older people completely abandoned, sometimes even dead in their beds,” Ms Robles told the TV channel Telecinco.

“We’re going to be very blunt and implacable over this and we have a very clear message: the full weight of the law will fall on those who don’t meet their obligations.”

The defence ministry said staff at some care homes had left after coronavirus cases were found.

In Madrid, the epicentre of Spain’s outbreak, an ice rink at the Palacio de Hielo shopping centre has been turned into a temporary morgue to deal with the surge in deaths, Madrid city hall said.

The country recorded its highest daily death toll on Tuesday, with 514 fatalities, as its total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases rose to nearly 40,000.

As of Tuesday morning, there were 39,673 confirmed coronavirus cases in Spain, with 2,696 deaths.

Salvador Illa, Spain’s health minister, said retirement homes were “an absolute priority for the government” during the pandemic crisis.

“We will exercise the most intensive monitoring of these centres,” she added.

Madrid’s municipal funeral home has said it will stop collecting Covid-19 victims due to a lack of protective equipment and the Palacio de Hielo rink will be used to store bodies until they can be collected safely.

Spanish authorities have also set up a field hospital for coronavirus patients in the capital’s Ifema congress centre as the country’s health service has struggled to deal with the number of cases.

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The only country in Europe with a worse Covid-19 outbreak than Spain is Italy, which has seen the highest number of coronavirus-related deaths in the world.

Italian authorities recorded 602 additional deaths on Monday, as its total fatalities rose to 6,077. There are over 63,000 cases of the disease in the country.