A video revealed the impact of the second wave of COVID-19 which hit Russia as piles of dead bodies were seen strewn in the morgue of Novokuznetsk, a Siberian city, located 300 miles from the border with Kazakhstan.
Since its outbreak in December last year, the pandemic has infected over 1.53 million people and killed more than 26,000. The virus, which shows no signs of slowing down, has so far infected over 43 million globally.
'Corpses Everywhere, Corpses, Corpses'
The video, which was recorded by a Russian medical worker showed dead bodies of COVID-19 victims wrapped in body bags piled up on one another in the Russian morgue.
"One minute in the life of a Covid morgue in Novokuznetsk city, the man says in the starting of the video which was leaked on the social media through Telegram.
After showing a shot of the 'clean zone' housing the disinfecting equipment, he then moves on to the 'dirty zone'.
"We have a corridor and it is full. Here is a dissecting room. Corpses everywhere, corpses, corpses everywhere. You can even stumble and fall. We literally walk over the heads of the dead," said the unidentified health worker.
In the clip, a few bodies are also seen dumped without a body bag. A corpse was seen covered with a blanket even as its legs were visible from below. According to the Daily Mail, the local health ministry in Kemerovo region has confirmed the authenticity of the video.
In a similar footage leaked last week, around 30 dead bodies, tied in body bags, were seen dumped in the basement of a hospital located in Barnaul, Altai region.
Head of Department Fired after Footage Goes Viral
The outlet reported that local governor Sergey Tsivilev fired the head of the local department of the ministry, Oleg Evsa, after the footage of the morgue went viral.
"Given the increase in the number of cases over the past three weeks, there is a rise in the number of deaths. Due to a delay in the release of the bodies, about 50 bodies of the deceased were stored here," an official statement read.
Claiming that the pile-up was due to the unclaimed bodies as many relatives of the deceased were either ill with Covid-19 or under quarantine.
The Sun reported that even as the country's national coronavirus information centre has registered some 26,050 deaths from Covid-19, its state statistics agency Rosstat estimated the total number of deaths due to the virus between April and August, to be 45,663.
