New Orleans collecting its dead
2005-09-05 21:11
New Orleans - Roaming mortuaries started an operation on Monday to lift the stench of death from the streets of New Orleans where victims of Hurricane Katrina have been left to rot for a week.
Refrigerated trucks followed soldiers, police and other emergency personnel on a grim mission to collect perhaps thousands of bodies in the flood waters, on street corners and in homes where whole families died and have yet to be found.
Bodies had been left to float in the streets because rescuers were told to concentrate on the search for survivors.
Eric Larsen, a doctor based at New Orleans International Airport, said soldiers from the 82nd airborne and other law enforcement personnel "are doing house-to-house sweeps of the city".
Corpses tied to stop signs
"It started early this morning. They are going house-to-house where they are going to find people who are still holding out, some who are sick and, unfortunately, some bodies," he said.
Some corpses were tied to road signs and electricity poles so they would not float away.
Decomposed beyond recognition
Others were marked with an "X" and covered with a blanket.
But after a week in the suffocating heat of New Orleans many have now decomposed beyond recognition.
Along with overflowing sewage, the bodies in New Orleans and along the coast have heightened fears of disease epidemics.
A mortuary that can handle 1 000 corpses at a time opened on Monday in the sleepy Louisiana town of St Gabriel, just south of the state capital, Baton Rouge.
Four federal disaster mortuary operation response teams (DMort) have been set up with pathologists, funeral directors, medical examiners, coroners and forensic technicians specialised in identifying badly decomposed bodies.
DMort spent nine months retrieving and identifying the dead after the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Collected bodies will go through the process of identification, finding a cause of death and informing family members.
Thousands dead
The teams can process up to 144 bodies a day, officials said.
"We will maintain dignity throughout this process," said Ron Ellis, a DMort spokesperson.
Authorities have not given a formal toll for the disaster after Hurricane Katrina, but several Louisiana leaders have said it is in the thousands.
One senator predicted it would be more than 10 000.
"Each death is enough. It is horrible," said Dr Louis Cataldie, Louisiana, emergency medical director.
The receding water is revealing more of the grisly scene of death in the city, where the hurricane breached protective levees unleashing flood water that swamped whole districts.
Helicopters rescued people who had clawed through their attic roofs and waited for help outside.
But many roofs are intact and front doors are closed.
Bodies at the Superdome
Rescuers and neighbours fear what they will find in many houses.
Several bodies remained for days at the Superdome Stadium where survivors gathered in chaotic conditions.
Survivors who were flown away from other emergency shelters on road bridges and school roofs also left fast-rotting bodies behind.
Emergency workers who come upon them later will bring them to sites including the Superdome and Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
From there, they will go to St Gabriel.
Family members who could not find their loved ones in refugee centres eventually will have access to a database of the dead, said Bob Johannessen, a spokesperson for the state department of health and hospitals.
After a while, unclaimed bodies will be buried.