As China’s coronavirus epicenter Wuhan awakens from its long nightmare, formerly locked-down citizens are beginning to reemerge, but for many, their first outdoor act in more than two months is grim: burying loved ones.

At the Biandanshan Cemetery, downcast groups of masked residents filed quietly past hazmat-suit-wearing security personnel and police on Tuesday to lay friends and relatives to rest under a leaden sky, a scene repeated in recent days at Wuhan’s graveyards.

Whether from coronavirus or other causes of death, Wuhan’s gradual re-opening in recent days has offered the first chance in weeks for the dead to be buried, and for the bereft to vent over what one called a “hellish” experience for the city.

At Biandanshan, authorities mindful of infection risks funneled groups into the hillside facility in lines separated by chest-high yellow traffic dividers, checking mourners’ temperatures and spraying them with disinfectant as they entered.

Some bore boxes swaddled in red, gold or black fabrics and containing cremated remains.

Grim-faced, many declined to speak to journalists, but one woman arriving for a family member’s burial expressed numbness.

“I don’t feel anything,” she said blankly.

Her relative had died of a stroke.

She gave no further details, but many of Wuhan’s 11 million residents have complained online of uninfected loved ones dying from other causes due to a lack of medical care during the epidemic, which overwhelmed the city’s hospitals.