World
Ecuador’s Virus Hot Spot Buys Freezers for Bodies, Plans New Cemetery
- President Lenin Moreno says 3,500 people may die in Guayas
- Government to announce new emergency economic plan next week
Coffins are transported into a cemetery on trucks, in Guayaquil, Ecuador on April 1, 2020.
Photographer: MARCOS PIN/AFP via Getty Images
This article is for subscribers only.
With government crews gathering up 150 corpses daily in southern Ecuador, President Lenin Moreno announced on Thursday that the death toll of coronavirus would soar far beyond anything official data so far has suggested.
Guayas province, which counts the sweltering port city of Guayaquil as its capital, has been the epicenter of the outbreak in Ecuador with more than 70% of the cases. The government’s emergency task force has seen fatalities rise five-fold in a week, Moreno said.