Bodies of coronavirus victims in New York City may be stored at ex-military fort as morgue near overflow

As New York City’s death toll continues to rise, the bodies of coronavirus victims may be stored at Fort Totten, a former cemetery-turned park.

Hart Island, the city’s public cemetery where unclaimed bodies have been buried for years, is currently where officials are storing bodies.

The site is in the Bronx, and only accessible by boat.

But a combination of regular flooding and the site’s hard to access location means the city may be looking elsewhere.

Of the US’s 22,154 deaths from Coronavirus, there have been 6,898 deaths in New York City alone.

In an email seen by the NY Daily News, high-ranking city officials said on March 29 – If the current outbreak escalates, burials will occur at Fort Totten and Hart Island.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office has declined that Fort Totten will be used as a site for public burials.

Workers bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island. Credit: Reuters

In an aerial photograph, a backhoe is seen working on large burial trenches and abandoned buildings on Hart Island. Credit: EPA

On Sunday, mayoral spokeswoman Avery Cohen said – We are not considering temporary burials at this time.

de Blasio’s press secretary Freddi Goldstein added – We’ve increased capacity enough that we do not believe we’ll have to move to temporary burials.



The mayor has said unclaimed coronavirus victims will be buried at Hart Island but assured the city’s residents that there would be no mass graves.

There will be no mass burials on Hart Island, he tweeted on Friday. Everything will be individual and every body will be treated with dignity.

More than 1 million people are interred at Hart Island.

New rules from the medical examiner’s office mean bodies will be taken to the island if they are unclaimed after two weeks.

Usually, around 25 people are buried on Hart Island each week, but according to CNN, the number has risen to 25 people a day.

A backhoe and workers are seen working on large burial trenches and abandoned buildings on Hart Island. Credit: EPA

On April 9, it emerged city officials had hired contract laborers to bury the dead in its potter’s field on Hart Island, which has been used since the 1800s for deceased with no known next of kin.

Before internment, the dead are wrapped in body bags and placed inside pine caskets, Reuters reported.

The deceased’s name is scrawled in large letters on each casket, which helps should a body need to be dug up later. They are buried in long narrow trenches excavated by digging machines.



Two new trenches have been added – in case we need them, Jason Kersten, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, which oversees the burials, told Reuters.

Another island to the south of Hart, Randall’s Island on the East River, is being used as a parking depot for dozens of empty refrigerated trucks between deployments outside city hospitals, Al Jazeera reported.

On Thursday, two trucks containing bodies that had been parked outside a hospital were temporarily moved back to the island depot, in a stadium car park, to make way for delivery of oxygen and other supplies at the hospital.

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