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DEATH ISLAND
‘Inmates filmed burying coffins on NY’s Hart Island which is to be used as mass grave for coronavirus victims’
INMATES in hazmat suits were apparently filmed burying coffins on New York's Hart Island, which the city is set to use as a mass burial site for coronavirus victims.
Drone footage taken by The Hart Island Project last Thursday appeared to show workers preparing for temporary burials at the mass burial plot in the Bronx borough of New York City.
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Rikers Island inmates in hazmat suits were seen on Hart IslandCredit: The Hart Island Project
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Drone footage taken last Thursday captured workers preparing the burial site for more coronavirus victimsCredit: Reuters
The Hart Island Project told The Sun on Tuesday that inmates help employees from the Department of Corrections with the digging.
The rep explained that the employees use machines to dig burial areas, and the inmates help them rake dirt over burial boxes.
Inmates have been digging on the island for 150 years throughout other pandemics, the rep said, noting that they are continuing to do so now because of the coronavirus outbreak.
About 25 caskets are buried there each week on Thursdays, but that number has nearly tripled to 72 since March as the virus rages on.
Bodies at the massive plot are laid to rest three deep in wooden, unmarked caskets.
A city official told The Sun that inmates at Rikers Island will assist in the burial of coronavirus victims on Hart Island.
The Sun learned from a source in Mayor Bill de Blasio's office that public parks will not be used for burials, but the City has used The Bronx graveyard in the past and could do so again amid the COVID-19 crisis.
The news comes after a Manhattan councilman tweeted that the City may be forced to use local beauty spots as the final resting place for coronavirus patients as the US death toll topped 10,000 Monday.
Mark Levine posted on Twitter that "trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line" to cope with the COVID-19 crisis as morgues and hospitals struggle to cope with the body count.
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Trenches will be dug for '10 caskets in a line' to cope with the ongoing coronavirus crisis, according to councilman Mark LevineCredit: Reuters
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Bodies are typically buried on Thursdays in wooden, unmarked caskets stacked three highCredit: The Hart Island Project
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What looked like a prison bus was visible in one of the imagesCredit: The Hart Island Project
But sources now indicate that barren Pelham Bay — Hart Island - the largest tax-funded cemetery in the United States - may be critical during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dubbed Potter's Field - or the "Island of the Dead" - some 68,955 souls have been buried in mass graves on this 101-acre site off the coast of the Bronx since 1980.
Many of these were AIDS patients according to The Hart Island Project.
The New York State Funeral Directors Association urged its members not to embalm AIDS fatalities in 1983.
Undertakers scrambled to handle the bodies of people who died of the deadly disease as a result of this.
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