Video shows giant trench being dug on NYC's Hart Island to bury coronavirus victims

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: NBC

New drone video shows a giant trench being dug at New York City's public cemetery on Hart Island to help handle an influx of unclaimed bodies due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As the death toll mounts in New York, the city's public cemetery has started receiving about the same amount of bodies per day that it used to bury there each week.

Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on the island, mostly for people whose families can't afford a funeral, or who go unclaimed by relatives. But recently, burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day, said Department of Correction spokesman Jason Kersten.

The medical examiner's office will only keep bodies for 14 days before they are sent to be buried in the city’s potter’s field on Hart Island in the Bronx.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-giant-trench-getting-built-nyc-s-hart-island-n1181056

[cyndensco]

1. It won't be the first time NYC utilized mass cemetery plots.

AIDS patients were buried that way in the 80's and 90's.

"Hart Island is a small islet located a mile east of the Bronx. It’s one mile long and a third of a mile wide (roughly 213 acres), and during the mid ’80s and ’90s, New York City buried thousands of people who’d died of HIV on the island out of fear the bodies might infect others.
…

"Although the city only buried 17 HIV-positive people there during 1985, they continued to do so well into the ’90s. The number of HIV-positive people buried there is estimated to be in the thousands, but city officials are reluctant to provide exact numbers because of longstanding criticisms of the island’s crude handling of deaths at the time."

https://www.queerty.com/folks-know-historic-mass-grave-hiv-positive-people-near-new-york-city-20190626

[sarge43]

11. Also happened to thousands during the 1918 pandemic.

At least the cemeteries (there will be more) should be marked. "Victims of the CORVID19 pandemic." They don't deserve to be forgotten as many have been.

[cyndensco]

15. Agreed. Names also.

[IronLionZion]

2. Remember when mass graves were in other shithole countries

Anyone presiding over this much preventable death during peacetime should be facing prison not reelection.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. +1

Especially when it could have been so less worse. And if anybody thinks we're being "hyper partisan" or whatever term the media wants to put on Trump's opponents, we have plenty of sane Republican governors whom have done good jobs managing this pandemic and there are some past and current Republicans whom would be handling things 10X better had then been in charge of this. We got stuck with the worst person in the worst place at the absolute worst time.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Background audio: "I don't accept any responsibility at all" ... "It's going to go away like magic"

... plus too many other quotes to mention. There's your ad right there.

[KewlKat]

5. Is this temporary? Will families be allowed to reclaim their loved ones?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

14. Probably permanent interment. From the wording in the article, ...

... these are bodies that are unclaimed. I hope they're noting who is buried where, so if some family member becomes identified, and has the means and desire to provide a normal funeral, then they can be exhumed.

From some of the photos, it looks like caskets are buried in stacks four high.

[IronLionZion]

18. That's a very risky proposition

[bluescribbler]

6. I hope they're keeping track

of who is buried where so they can be given a proper burial when, and if, this finally blows over.

[truthisfreedom]

10. Sounds like they're writing on each casket with magic marker.

"Before burial, the dead are wrapped in body bags and placed inside pine caskets. The deceased’s name is scrawled in large letters on each casket, which helps should a body need to be disinterred later. They are buried in long narrow trenches excavated by digging machines."

[Steelrolled]

7. You mean they're not burying people in the parks? /s

[truthisfreedom]

8. #tRUMPBURIALPITS

[rustysgurl]

9. Should be the background video ...

... of every anti-Trump political ad from now until the election.

[bronxiteforever]

12. Kick and recommend for visibility

[kairos12]

13. Shitler speaks to the mass

gathering--of graves.

[Botany]

16. But her emails

[Mrs. Overall]

20. +1000

[iluvtennis]

19. May they all Rest In Peace