Workers wearing hazmat suits protective gear reportedly were spotted Thursday burying caskets on New York City's Hart Island amid speculation coronavirus victims are being interred there.
About a dozen laborers were seen digging and burying the caskets Thursday as at least one refrigerated truck was brought onto the island, the U.K.'s Daily Mail reported.
At least 45 caskets — some of which had names carved into them — appeared to be buried in a mass grave, the Mail reported.
The city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner posted a subtle policy change to its website Thursday about the disposal of bodies.
Instead of holding some bodies in refrigerated city storage for 30 days until they are claimed by families, the city will now hold them for less than half that time. The site noted decedents who are not claimed by a funeral home within two weeks would be sent to the Bronx's Hart Island, where a mass graveyard called City Cemetery contains more than 1 million unclaimed bodies — the largest such site in the United States, Business Insider noted.
"As we aim to accommodate the many New Yorkers who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) will provide temporary storage of a decedent for up to 14 days," the office said on its website. "If a decedent has not been claimed within 14 days, the decedent will be transferred for temporary interment at City Cemetery."
Earlier in the week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said officials have explored the possibility of temporary burials on Hart Island and, under a contingency plan, bodies of COVID-19 victims would be buried individually so families could later reclaim them.
"There will never, ever be anything like mass graves or mass internment in New York City, ever," de Blasio said Monday.
The city’s 2008 Pandemic Influenza Surge Plan states Hart Island would be used as a temporary burial site in the event the death toll reaches the tens of thousands and if other storage, such as the refrigerator trucks parked outside hospitals, is full.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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