Coronavirus US: ‘Up to 100 bodies’ of victims ‘found in trucks’

Up to 100 bodies of coronavirus victims have been found in trucks in New York after neighbours complained of the smelll. Warning: Graphic.

Up to 100 bodies of coronavirus victims were reportedly found piled up in U-Haul trucks parked at a New York funeral home after neighbours complained of a “smell of death”.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) was called to the Andrew T Cleckley funeral home in Brooklyn Wednesday, where they blocked off the entire street after receiving a slew of 911 calls about decomposing bodies.

A NYPD officer walks up beside rental trucks and a hearse partially covered by a tarp outside Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home, Thursday, April 30, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Picture: AP /John Minchillo.

Onlookers with masks walk outside a funeral home in Brooklyn on April 30, 2020 in New York City. Picture: Johannes Eisele/AFP

The discovery comes as NYC’s mortuaries, cemeteries, crematories and city-run morgues struggle to cope with the mounting COVID-19 victims.

Police sources reportedly told ABC News both trailers outside the funeral home each contained 50 bodies.

Neighbours alleged the bodies were stacked one on top of the other inside the trucks – which were seen parked outside the funeral home – and reports indicate they had been rotting there for over seven days.

Officers from the 63rd Precinct arrived on the scene at Utica Avenue yesterday upon receiving calls about “blood coming from one of the trucks,” according to AM NY.

Police were called to the funeral home Wednesday after it resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented trucks. Picture: AP / John Minchillo.

Workers move bodies to a refrigerated truck from the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Wednesday, April 29, 2020. Picture: AP /Craig Ruttle.

Alisha Narvaez Manager at International Funeral & Cremation Services transports a body to the funeral home on April 24, 2020 in the Harlem neighbourhood of New York City. Picture: Johannes Eisele / AFP.

Jay Fredo, 57, told the New York Daily News that workers have been “constantly outside unloading bodies” for weeks.

“You could smell the death,” he said.

“Some of them have been dropped. I know it’s a pandemic, but this is crazy. It’s sick.”

Louie dePasquale saw funeral home workers unloading the bodies before they were stopped by the police yesterday and explained that police were called because “blood was leaking onto the ground.

“It’s disgusting, inhumane the way they are treating bodies – like pieces of meat, just throwing them out,” the local mechanic told AMNY.

“They just have everything out, bodies were exposed, people’s family were in there – just no respect, no remorse.”

A casket is taken to a hearse from the Andrew Cleckley Funeral Home on April 30, 2020. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

For many families already in distress, finding a funeral home in New York that will accept the body of a loved one is a headache; in Harlem, International Funeral home tries not to turn anyone away. Picture: Johannes Eisele / AFP.

Manager Alisha Narvaez (L) and Lily Sage Weinrieb, Resident Funeral Director at International Funeral & Cremation Services transport a body on a stretcher to the funeral home on April 24, 2020, in the Harlem neighbourhood of New York City. Picture: Johannes Eisele / AFP.

Alisha Narvaez manager at International Funeral & Cremation Services is pictured inside the chapel of the funeral home on April 24, 2020 in the Harlem neighbourhood of New York City. Picture: Johannes Eisele / AFP.

Police said it appeared the bodies were not refrigerated – but that allegation is still under investigation

Hazmat and Department of Health investigators were on the scene trying to determine if a nursing home had properly stored the bodies in compliance with state guidelines.

A spokesperson from the New York State Health Department said they’d been notified of the “storage issues.”

She asserted that “funeral directors are required to store decadents awaiting burial or other final disposition in appropriate conditions and to follow their routine infection prevention and control precautions.”

The New York Times had reported the funeral home began using trucks for storage when its freezer malfunctioned.

James Harvey tends to the caskets at a funeral home on April 29, 2020 in New York City. The funeral home, which serves a busy and diverse community in Queens, has been overwhelmed with the deceased from COVID-19. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP.

The funeral director told Eyewitness News they had run out of space inside for bodies – though he declined to say how many are inside.

He insisted no bodies were being kept in U-Haul trucks outside, adding they were filled with furniture.

He said all bodies were either inside a refrigerated truck or the morgue.

Pictures, however, appeared to show workers securing vans full of body bags in U-Haul trucks and moving them into refrigerated containers.

The investigation is ongoing.

The body of a coronavirus victim is transported to a refrigerated container at a funeral home in Queens on April 29, 2020 in New York City. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP.

Undertakers have been overwhelmed across the US, where there have been more than 60,000 deaths – with hospitals also resorting to using refrigerated trucks to store the dead.

The reports come after it was revealed some 10,000 unclaimed bodies will be buried this year on New York’s so-called Island of the Dead.

It is ten times the usual number taken to Hart Island – the grim front line in America’s war against coronavirus.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Melinda Hunt, president of The Hart Island Project, which catalogues each known victim buried there. “It’s a massacre.”

Bodies not claimed by a private funeral director within 15 days are eligible to be buried on the island.

America’s death tally from the coronavirus will soon be deadlier than any flu season since 1967, as an average of 2,000 people died a day in April.

The country’s worst flu season in recent memory was in 2017 to 2018 season, when more than 61,000 people died, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A name or “unknown”, along with a grave number, is written in permanent marker on coffin lids as the pandemic continues to kill thousands of Americans.

This article originally appeared in The US Sun and was republished with permission.