In Bergamo, the part of Italy worst affected by the coronavirus outbreak, coffins are overflowing local facilities, The Washington Post reported.

Under the country's strict lockdown, many families have been unable to see their loved ones during treatment or to attend their funerals.

There is a waiting list for services, a crematorium is working 24 hours a day, and the obituary section of a local newspaper has grown to about 10 pages, The Post said.

Italy, now the country being hardest hit by the outbreak, had reported more than 2,100 deaths and more than 27,000 cases as of Tuesday.

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Funeral services are overwhelmed in Bergamo, the northern Italian city hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, with a crematorium operating 24 hours a day, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

There is now a waiting list for burials there, and coffins of the deceased awaiting services have overflowed two hospital morgues and a cemetery morgue, The Post reported.

A video posted by the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero on Sunday also showed coffins lined up in a Bergamo church.

A still from a video posted over the weekend by Il Messaggero showed coffins awaiting funeral services in Bergamo. Il Messaggero

Italy is the worst-hit country by the coronavirus outbreak outside of China, with more than 27,000 confirmed cases and 2,158 people dead as of Tuesday. So far, 2,749 people are reported to have recovered.

Under the strict lockdown imposed in this part of Italy on March 8 by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, many Bergamo funerals are being held with only a priest and a funeral-home employee present, with occasional permission for a funeral of no more than 10 mourners, according to The Post.

Cemeteries have been closed off so that people won't be tempted to leave their homes and gather to visit graves, The Post said.

The stringent precautions at every stage mean that many people have had no opportunity to visit a loved one after the onset of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, or to see the body before the funeral, according to The Post.

Relatives of a person who died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, arrive at a cemetery in Bergamo on Monday. Flavio Lo Scalzo/Reuters

"I think it's worse than a war," Marta Testa, whose father died of COVID-19 on Wednesday, told The Post. "Dad is waiting to be buried. And we are here waiting to tell him goodbye."

Testa never saw her father again after he was taken to a hospital on March 7.

As authorities increasingly recommend cremation over burial, the crematorium in Bergamo has begun operating around the clock, The Post reported.

The scale of the devastation in Bergamo is starkly illustrated by a tweet from the journalist David Carretta, who on Saturday posted a video of himself leafing through the obituary pages of the local daily paper, L'Eco di Bergamo, on two dates, February 9 and March 13.

The obituary section, which was 1 1/2 pages in February, spanned 10 pages on Friday.

The rise in coronavirus cases across Italy has overwhelmed doctors, forcing them to make agonizing decisions about who to prioritize for treatment.

In China, which has had more than 81,000 cases, the spread of the virus has slowed significantly, meaning Italy now has the biggest struggle against it.