The Italian government has ordered the army to move bodies from a northern town at the center of the COVID-19 outbreak where funeral services have been overwhelmed as the nation prepares for a prolonged emergency lockdown.
Video shot in Bergamo, northeast of Milan, and posted on the Web site of the Eco di Bergamo newspaper, showed a long column of military trucks driving through the streets overnight and removing coffins from the town’s cemetery.
An army spokesman on Thursday confirmed that 15 trucks and 50 troops had been deployed to move bodies to neighboring provinces.
Photo: Reuters / Sergio Agazzi, Fotogramma
Earlier, Bergamo authorities had appealed for help with cremations after they had overwhelmed its crematorium.
Italy on Wednesday recorded the largest ever one-day increase in coronavirus deaths as the total rose by 475 to almost 3,000.
There were more than 300 deaths in the region of Lombardy alone, where Bergamo is located.
Italy went into virtual lockdown before other European nations, but, with cases still rising, the government is considering even tougher measures that would further restrict the limited amount of outdoor movement permitted.
The Corriere della Sera newspaper on Thursday quoted Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte as saying the government would extend the deadline of emergency measures that have closed schools and many businesses.
Under the measures, most shops are to stay shut until at least Wednesday next week and schools until April 3.
Conte did not say how long the measures would be prolonged.
Officials have said tougher measures could be needed because too many people are not respecting the order to stay at home for all but essential purposes, and thousands are still falling ill.
The images of army trucks evacuating bodies underlined the extent to which health services in the worst-affected northern regions of Italy have been stretched to breaking point by the crisis.
Giacomo Angeloni, the official in charge of cemeteries in Bergamo, said earlier this week that the crematorium was working around the clock and handling about 24 bodies a day, almost twice its normal maximum, and was unable to keep up.
With mortuaries overflowing, the pews of the crematorium’s chapel have been removed to leave space to lay out scores of coffins, but more have been arriving every day.
Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana said that medical personnel in the region’s hospitals were at their limits.
“I’m worried about the possibility they could succumb physically and psychologically, because if they were to succumb, it really would be a disaster,” Fontana told Radio Capital.
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