MADRID — The death of an 87-year-old woman whose eviction from her Madrid home of seven decades shocked Spain has intensified public anger over soaring rents, as the country heads toward a general strike and a snap national election.

María del Carmen Abascal, known across Spain simply as Maricarmen, died Wednesday at Madrid's Gregorio Marañón hospital, according to the Madrid Tenants' Union. She had been hospitalized since Sept. 23, when she was carried out of her apartment on a stretcher during a court-ordered eviction.

Her death came two weeks after images of her removal spread across the country, turning her into a symbol of Spain's deepening housing crisis.

Evicted after 70 years

Abascal had lived in the apartment in the Ibiza neighborhood of Madrid's upscale Retiro district since 1956. The lease was originally signed by her father and later passed to her mother and then to Abascal herself after her mother's death in 2005.

The eviction did not stem from unpaid rent but from the legal expiration of the lease. Reports said the real estate investment firm that owned the building sharply increased the rent to a level far beyond what she could afford on her pension.

On the morning of the eviction, Abascal was removed from her home shortly before 1 p.m. and taken by ambulance to the hospital as protesters and........

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