More than 60 rotting bodies have been found in an abandoned Mexican crematorium after neighbours complained to authorities about a foul smell coming from the building.

The 61 bodies, most of them male, were discovered in a funeral home near the popular resort of Acapulco. It had been closed for about a year, according to a government official.

Guerrero state prosecutor Miguel Angel Godinez confirmed the number of bodies in comments to local media.

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Members of a forensic medical team work through the ghastly discovery in the funeral home near Acapulco

Mexican soldiers look through the crematorium, where the bodies were covered in sheets and doused with quicklime in an attempt to mask the smell of rotting flesh

Police and forensic experts search the area surrounding the crematorium in a hunt for clues which could reveal who left the bodies at the site

Soldiers stand guard at the site while medical workers remove the 61 badly decomposed corpses

Many of the bodies were covered with sheets and had been doused with quicklime, apparently to reduce the odour of rotting flesh.

Some of the bodies appeared to have been there for as long as a year, but others could have been placed at the site more recently, the official said.

The state of Guerrero has been shaken by drug-related violence, including the notorious disappearance of 43 college students who were allegedly rounded up by corrupt police on September 26 and handed over to a drug gang.

Federal investigators say the students, who last were seen in Iguala, about 105 miles north of Acapulco, were killed and their remains burned at a rubbish dump.

There were no immediate signs that the bodies found at the funeral home were connected to the case of the missing students or any other crime.

There were no immediate signs the bodies found at the funeral home (pictured) were connected to a recent incident in which 43 college students were rounded up by corrupt police and handed over to a drug gang