Covid-19: a mass grave on an island in New York to unclog the morgues

Images filmed this week by drone for the New York Post show dozens of sketchy coffins being buried on Hart Island, which has been used as a mass grave since 1869. REUTERS / Lucas Jackson

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With the increase in mortality in New York due to the coronavirus, the city is facing a lack of space to store the remains of the victims and has just activated the measures provided for in its plan for pandemics, by digging a mass grave on Hart Island. For 150 years, the island has served as a burial ground for the poor, prisoners or people whose bodies are not claimed. It is also where the victims of the Spanish flu and AIDS were buried.

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With our correspondent in New York, Carrie Nooten

The image is striking: the first long trench is freshly dug, and we see men in white coveralls piling pine coffins engraved with a name, in two rows and three floors, then cover them again with earth.

The drone that captures the scene is only a few kilometers from the center of Manhattan, it flies over Hart Island, east of the Bronx. The island is reputed to have housed the cemetery of the destitute in the megalopolis for 150 years. It is also planned to receive the victims of an influenza pandemic , in the city's emergency plan created ten years ago.

25 bodies buried per day

It is accessed only by boat. Thus, two days ago, a first barge carrying a refrigerated trailer landed on the island. The city hired workers to dig the trench with backhoes. Usually 25 bodies are buried per week by prisoners from the nearby Rikers prison: New Yorkers whose bodies have not been claimed by relatives or prisoners.

► Also read: Coronavirus: Cheyenne, homeless in New York, more vulnerable than ever

These days, 25 bodies are buried there every day, five days a week. The city did not specify whether they were only victims of the Covid-19. One thing is certain, they were sent there to unclog the city's morgues, which receive twice as many bodies as normal. Families wishing to do so should be able to request the coffins of their loved ones within 15 days to organize private burials.

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  • United States
  • Coronavirus
  • Health and Medicine

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