Coronavirus in Denmark: slaughtered mink carcasses begin to surface

The corpses of millions of euthanized minks in Denmark, buried in graves after coronavirus cases were detected, have started to surface as a result of the gas build-up.

If the phenomenon, recorded in various photos and videos circulating on social networks, has caused concern among the population, the authorities have indicated that it does not represent a risk.

What happened

A few days ago, Denmark announced that it would euthanize 15 million mink housed in hatcheries because many of them had contracted Covid-19 and, in the absence of scientific evidence, there were concerns that they cannot pass it on to humans.

For this reason, they built a series of mass graves 200 meters long and between one and a half and two meters deep to remove the corpses of the animals.

So far they have buried around 10 million copies.

In the last hours, under the effect of the gases released by the decomposition, the corpses began to emerge towards the surface. With this, concerns have grown over possible phosphorus and nitrogen contamination, which authorities have promised to address.

According to Danish public television (DR), the reappearance of corpses is “a temporary problem linked to the process of decomposition of animals”.

Authorities said there was no risk of contagion from Covid-19 and said they were working to resolve the problem.