遺体安置所だった教会、すべてのひつぎ撤収　コロナ打撃の伊ベルガモ

【ローマＡＦＰ＝時事】イタリアで新型コロナウイルスの感染拡大がピークに達した際に遺体安置所として多くのひつぎが置かれていた北部ベルガモの教会で、ひつぎが「ようやくなくなった」と、地元市長が18日、明らかにした。（写真はベルガモ近郊の教会に並べられたひつぎ）
　ジョルジオ・ゴリ市長はツイッターに、かつて多数のひつぎが置かれていた場所に、花だけが残された様子を捉えた写真を投稿。この写真は、２万３０００人超が亡くなったイタリアの危機的状況が緩和されつつあることを象徴するようだ。
　ベルガモがある裕福なロンバルディア州には、伊全土の感染者の半数以上が集中している。
　専門家のドメニコ・アーキュリ氏は１８日、ロンバルディア州の新型コロナウイルスによる死者数は、第２次世界大戦中にミラノで爆撃により亡くなった人数の５倍に上ると説明。
　同州で１万２０００人近くが亡くなったことは「驚くべき」ことだと強調し、「われわれは大きな悲劇の中を生きている。この悲劇に私たちはまだ打ち勝っていない」と述べた。
　市民保護局によると、１８日に国内で新たに確認された感染者数の９０％以上は、同州で確認されたという。
　イタリアの中でも甚大な被害が出ているベルガモでは、死者の多さに地元の遺体安置所が対応しきれず、先月には軍が派遣され、何十ものひつぎが教会や近隣都市の火葬場に運搬された。
　防護服を着た当局者らが教会でひつぎを並べる様子を捉えた悲惨な写真も公開されていた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/04/20-13:11）

A church in Bergamo that served as an overspill morgue at the height of Italy's coronavirus epidemic is finally empty, the mayor said Saturday.
Where dozens of coffins once stood, nothing but flowers are left to be seen in a photograph tweeted by mayor Giorgio Gori that symbolises the easing of a crisis that has killed over 23,000 people in Italy.
Bergamo is in the wealthy northern region of Lombardy, which accounts for over half Italy's virus victims.
Italy's coronavirus emergency czar Domenico Arcuri said Saturday that five times as many people had died in the region during the epidemic than had been killed in Milan during World War II bombings.
We are living through a great tragedy, which we have not yet overcome, he said, describing the nearly 12,000 Lombardy dead as an astounding figure.
Over 90 percent of saturday's new coronavirus cases in Italy were in Lombardy, the civil protection agency said.
As local morgues failed to cope with the number of deaths in Bergamo, the country's worst-hit city, the Italian army was brought in last month to take dozens of coffins to churches and then to crematoriums in neighbouring cities.
Harrowing pictures emerged of officers in protective hazmat suits stacking coffins in churches.
- 'Blink of an eye' -
Gori said the death toll in Bergamo was much worse than officially recorded.
Some 795 Bergamo residents died in the six weeks since the start of March, 626 more than the average toll in the same period over the past ten years, he said last week.
Only 272 people were officially recorded to have died of the virus in Bergamo, as Italy logs deaths in hospitals but not in homes or assisted living facilities.
The epidemic has been slowly on the decline, with the number of intensive care patients in Lombardy falling below the 1,000 mark for the first time in a month Friday.
Many are urging the government to lift strict restrictions imposed for the country's two-month lockdown, which is due to expire on May 4 and has been crippling the economy.
But Arcuri said it was blatantly wrong to talk about a conflict between health and economic recovery.
Without health and safety, economic recovery would last like the blink of an eye, he said.
And the WHO's Italian government adviser Walter Ricciardi insisted a second wave of the virus was not a hypothesis, it is a certainty.
That's why it is very important not to speed up the reopening, he said.
Despite the warnings, some flouted the lockdown. The interior minister said it had caught 8,200 people breaking rules, including social distancing, aimed at preventing the spread of the virus Friday.
And in Saviano, a town near Naples, hundreds of people -- including local law enforcement officers -- thronged the streets Saturday to pay their respects to their mayor, a doctor killed by the coronavirus, Italian media reported.