Heart Island: Millions of corpses from multiple epidemics on the ground!
Heart Island; An island in New York, which has been a cemetery for many years. The soil of this island is a place of eternal sleep for the poor who are so poor that they cannot afford to have a funeral. The island is known as the last resort of New York City's unrelated, anonymous, barren corpses. Countless people who have died in multiple epidemics, whose identities have not been identified, are finally sleeping here in astonishing silence.
Located in Brungs, the island was bought by New York in 18 and began its journey as a public cemetery in 189. More than 1,000 bodies have been buried on the island every year since its inception, and relatives have since returned with a claim of about 40 bodies. The city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner waits exactly 30 days before burying each unclaimed body.
During this period, if no identity of the deceased is found or no acquaintance comes forward with a claim, he is buried. But with the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic in New York City, the authorities are forced to wait 6 days, then 14 days, and finally 15 days, as the number of dead bodies in New York City continues to rise. If the identity of the deceased is not resolved within 15 days, his last rites are performed.
Every week, unidentified bodies from all the morgues in New York City are taken to Heart Island for burial. They lay on the ground at the foot of an unnamed tombstone. With death, all the one-time names and identities of these people are lost! The island is home to more than a thousand corpses each year. To date, there are more than one million unidentified dead bodies buried there.
The situation on Heart Island has also changed a lot with the ongoing coronavirus epidemic. Hundreds of people are dying in New York City every day because of Covid-19. Grieving family members are forced to stay indoors due to quarantine, and the entire city is locked down to control the coronavirus infection. On the other hand, the expanded medical system is also failing to provide adequate services to all patients. Also every morgue in the city has already reached their capacity.In this situation, the New York City authorities, helpless, chose Heart Island as the cemetery.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio recently expressed his condolences in a tweet. He said
We all mourn the constant death. The rising death toll means many people are unable to say goodbye to their lost loved ones in person. For the information of all, it is to be informed that not all the bodies will be buried together in Heart Island. Each body will be buried separately with due respect, as those who died were residents of New York City and our neighbors.
New York City bought the island in 18 after a 200-year private enterprise. The following year, it was decided to use 45 acres of land as a separate burial ground. Initially, the purpose of this initiative was to work for the marginalized people who are in dire financial straits and those who do not have the financial means to say goodbye even after losing their relatives.So far, funerals and burials have been the island's main responsibility, with all legal rights in the hands of the New York City Department of Correction.
The first person to be buried in this 100-year-old cemetery is Louisa Van Slick. He died of tuberculosis in 189 at the age of 24. He was buried here as no family or individual came forward with any claim of identity.