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Absolutely Heartbreaking.
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So sad to see this - anyone know where in NYC this is?Comment -
must be homeless, no relatives, or a few with relatives unwilling to claim bodies.....
no way the funeral home industry isn't planning on cashing in on burials, so these have to be unclaimed victims.....
still, their efforts beat these by a long shot:
that's china, by the way.......
past treatment of chinese:
very dignified..... imagine vitterd's, mike jamm's, bobby waves, and all your favorite posters skulls all in well-organized KUNG FLU line.....
the gov't is commended to be handling these unclaimed bodies in this fashion.....Comment -
As Morgues Fill, N.Y.C. to Bury Some Virus Victims in Potter’s Field
The number of internments has drastically increased on Hart Island, where for 150 years the city has buried its poor or unclaimed dead.
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New York City hired laborers to bury unclaimed bodies on Hart
By Corey Kilgannon
Since the mid-1800s, New York City’s potter’s field on Hart Island, off the coast of the Bronx, has figured in numerous epidemics affecting New York City — as a burial ground during the Spanish Flu and AIDS crisis, and a quarantine spot for yellow fever and tuberculosis victims.
And now, with coronavirus deaths overwhelming the city’s morgue capacity, it is needed again.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday that it was likely some coronavirus victims would be sent to Hart Island, where for 150 years New York City has buried its unclaimed dead and those whose families are too poor to afford private burials.
The city has already begun to drastically increase interments on the island, to around 24 a day, as many as it would bury there in a week before the pandemic hit, according to the city’s Department of Correction, which runs the burial operation on the island.
It is unclear if those recently increased burials include those who have died from the coronavirus, or if they are people who passed away before the pandemic and were being moved from morgues to create space for the newly dead.
But funeral directors said they had been told that any coronavirus victims not claimed within two weeks will be buried on Hart Island, at least temporarily.
Recently, drone footage and images have circulated of burial crews in freshly dug muddy trenches burying body after body in bare wooden boxes. They have become searing illustrations of the pandemic’s ghastly mortal toll, along with those of field hospital tents in Central Park, a Navy hospital ship off Manhattan and refrigerated trailers parked outside hospitals to handle the overflow of bodies.
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A freshly dug trench can be seen on the right side of a satellite image of Hart Island from April 6.Credit...Satellite image ©2020 Maxar Technologies
In normal times, an average of 150 people die every day in New York City. The virus has effectively doubled that, overwhelming funeral homes, crematories, cemeteries and city morgues. Nearly 120 morgue workers, assisted by more than 100 soldiers from the Army, the National Guard and the Air National Guard, are working in shifts around the clock, driving rented vans all over the city to pick up bodies.
This contingency burial plan involving Hart Island is part of an influenza pandemic surge plan created a decade ago by officials with the city’s medical examiner, said Councilman Mark D. Levine, who chairs the City Council’s Health Committee.
The plan is a touchy one because burials on the island, which is off-limits to the public, have long borne a stigma. Bodies interred on the island can be retrieved for later reburial, but it is certain to heighten the horror if relatives of Covid-19 victims find out that their loved one has been put in a wooden box and piled in a trench on a forbidden island overseen by the city’s jail system.
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More than 1 million New Yorkers are buried on Hart Island.Credit...Todd Heisler/The New York Times
“It’s hard for New Yorkers to think about anybody being buried on Hart Island,” Mr. Levine said, “but it will be done in a dignified, orderly professional manner.”
The Hart Island plan will create an added layer of difficulty for overwhelmed funeral directors. They are running out of space to store bodies, given the wave of deaths and the postponement of many funerals because of social-distancing rules. Now they fear having to break more bad news to reeling families.
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Thanks 19th Hole - had no idea this place even existed.Comment -
Should cremate them if they are unclaimed.Comment -
What a beautiful spot to rest!Comment -
We need to change how we bury the dead
The modern way of burying a body, the "casket in the ground method" most of us are used to is horrible for the environment. It uses an incredible amount of resources, emits toxic pollutants into the air, and pumps the ground full of formaldehyde, which is known to cause cancer. It's also prohibitively expensive. The average cost of a modern funeral costs between $10,000 to $12,000.
There are a number of greener options available though. Cremation uses less resources and requires less space than a traditional burial, but isn't perfect. There are more experimental methods on the horizon such as promession and alkaline hydrolysis.
No matter which method we choose, it's clear that we need to reform how we bury the dead.
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YEP, until it became relevant in an effort to horrify us, there were 25-30 people per week being discarded like trash in these nyc mass graves.....Originally posted by Statman
enlightened easterner way of throwing away the unsightly.... for those who wind up there simply because their relatives didn't want to claim them, MAY vermin pick at said relatives' unburied bones in the streets of gotham someday, you dispicable swine, when your time to leave this earth comes....
for those who had no family, or who had become so detached from their families that notification wasn't possible, may God have mercy on their souls......
but yah, this place is open year round, but it took blaming trump for it all for these mass graves to hit the nightly news......Comment
