Madrid's Sol metro station reopened on Saturday, 17 October 2026, after Metro de Madrid said laboratory tests had restored the „necessary safety and health conditions”. Europa Press reported the reopening in the evening; El Mundo put it on the day's agenda. Cercanías, the suburban rail network that uses the same hub, had not stopped. Friday's closure, from midday on 16 October, remains a separate episode, already reported when ventilation shafts were cleaned beside the housing camp in Puerta del Sol.

Cleaning of the shafts finished at 2:00 on Saturday. Metro then moved to the second phase of its protocol: ventilation, samples, analysis by an outside laboratory. The hygiene-risk report said explicitly that service should not resume until there were „objective, documented guarantees”. In the afternoon the housing-rights camp marked three weeks, with the metro still shut; the reopening came towards 22:00, after the results.

The central government's delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, asked in the morning why the station remained closed after the clean-up. Regional councillor Jorge Rodrigo told Transport Minister Óscar Puente that Sol has three ventilation shafts and that only one sits in the square, outside the camp's perimeter. Cercanías, he stressed, had no hygiene problem. The quarrel is political: who answers for the metro (the regional government) and who for Cercanías (the state).

Reopening does not end the camp and does not erase why Metro cut the service. It means that, on the laboratory's paper, air and plant had crossed the internal safety threshold for staff and passengers. Anyone going down to Sol again finds the platform open; anyone who reads this as a verdict on the camp or on Ayuso has the subject wrong.

This is not a health notice and it does not say the square is „clean” in a political sense. It is an infrastructure note: a station closed on Friday, checked on Saturday, reopened after tests. If it closes again, that will be another event.

Image: IngolfBLN, Sol metro station, Madrid, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive interior, not the platform on the evening of 17 October 2026.

Sources consulted: Sol station reopens after safety and health tests - Europa Press; Sol station, Madrid - El Mundo.