1 month ago
23 They’re tails from the crypt.
Minks massacred amid a coronavirus outbreak in Denmark appeared to rise from the grave like zombies due to a bizarre biological phenomenon, according to a report Wednesday.
Thousands of the animals were slaughtered and dumped in a makeshift mass tomb near the town of Holstebro after they were found to be carrying a mutated COVID-19 strain earlier this month, according to Agence France-Presse.
But, in the rush to dispose of them, the furry critter corpses were buried just 3 feet deep — and were pushed to the surface by gases released during the decomposition process, the outlet reported.
The hair-raising sight was spotted in a military training field, not far from a lake in the country’s western region — infuriating local elected officials, who called the flawed burial a potential public health nightmare.
RELATED: How Dutch farm worker caught virus from infected mink
RELATED: Test your general knowledge with our quiz
“The authorities are playing with our environment and using it as a dumping ground,” Leif Blogger, a local politician, told the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
The creepy carcasses could cause phosphorus and nitrogen pollution, officials said.
But the country’s environmental ministry, which was responsible for the burial, called the spine-tingling screw-up a “temporary problem tied to the animals’ decaying process,” according to the outlet.
They noted the animals should have been buried under at least 5 feet of dirt.
The grave now “will be monitored 24 hours a day until a fence is put up” to avoid potential problems, the department said.
Denmark announced it would slaughter all of the country’s more than 15 million minks in mid-November after a mutated version of COVID-19 was discovered in fur farms and factories. The strain could weaken the effectiveness of vaccines, officials said.
The saga has also killed at least one career: Denmark’s minister for food and agriculture resigned last week after the government admitted it did not have the right to order the cull.
This story originally appeared on the New York Post and has been republished here with permission
English (United States)