Health workers wearing protective gear bring a dead body past a refrigerated container outside of Teodoro Maldonado Carbo Hospital amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Guayaquil
Reuters

The scene is pseudo-apocalyptic. Corpses are left outside cemeteries and hospitals as Ecuador struggles to deal with the massive body count. The mortuaries and cemeteries are overwhelmed by the sudden, continuous deaths, and these unclaimed bodies are wrapped in plastic, as seen in videos circulating on social media.

Currently, Ecuador patients positive for coronavirus is at 7,466, while deaths are at 333. So far, 501 have recovered. Ecuadorians believe this is not an accurate number of the actual cost.

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More Morgues

Government officials in Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, are in the process of giving away cardboard coffins to compensate for the scarce burial services to help families put their loved ones to rest. Because of its high population density, Guayaquil has become a hotspot for COVID-19.

Funeral homes are struggling to receive the bodies since the disease can be contracted even in the death of the patients. A health worker at the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo hospital likened the ordeal to that of a warzone.

"The things we have seen are straight out of a horror film," he adds.

Other residents are forced to bring their deceased loved ones home with the city's insufficient burial space. As the bodies rot, neighbors complain of the stench. However, a report by BBC reveals that corpses of COVID-19 patients from Guayaquil hospitals are yet to be released over two weeks since their deaths.

"We've been waiting here for over ten days," a relative of a deceased patient says in the video report. She adds that the family is yet to retrieve and bury the body of their family member. "The corpses have been [at the back of the building] for 15 days-they're already disfigured and rotting with worms."

Authorities Apologize

Jorge Wated, president of the public bank BanEcuador, apologized in a message broadcast to the people. He also served as the national coronavirus joint task force coordinator. In the video, he said that mortuaries had too many bodies on their hands to remove the corpses of the deceased, more so because of the curfew during the pandemic.

A public cemetery for the dead of the coronavirus is currently underway to shelter 2,000 bodies. Wated tells the people, "We acknowledge any errors and apologize to those who had to wait days for their loved ones to be taken away."

Measures such as installing refrigerator trucks at public hospitals are being done. Guayaquil's mayor, Cynthia Viteri, shared that the city is already receiving these container trucks for the storage of the bodies from the hospital to make room for more patients. She is also confirmed to have coronavirus.

In the meantime, as authorities started collecting over a hundred bodies of the dead, Ecuador President Lenin Moreno claimed a more accurate figure was much higher than was being reported. He also posted on Twitter that a task force to give the deceased a dignified burial is in progress.

On Saturday, he confirmed a digital system that can be accessed online would be able to allow Ecuador families to see where their dead relatives were buried.