March 23rd, I live my home town (Udine) and after a 4h drive across a deserted highway and a silent Italy, I reach the province of Bergamo. Three police officers are checking who is getting in and who is getting out from the most infected area, by Sars-CoV-2 in the whole planet.
“Why are you here?”
“I am a photographer, I came to document what’s happening here” – I hand them my ID card and the permit to move around
“Hmmm I see… Welcome to Bergamo. Stay safe.”
“I am a photographer, I came to document what’s happening here” – I hand them my ID card and the permit to move around
“Hmmm I see… Welcome to Bergamo. Stay safe.”
The engine starts. No other sounds cross the air.
It’s just 9pm, yet Bergamo is already mute.
It’s just 9pm, yet Bergamo is already mute.
Doing Mass via Radio
Brescia Special COVID quarantine Unit
Civil Protection Volunteer
Intensive Care Unit
A gravedigger preparing for the funeral
Priests and gravediggers were the only person allowed to celebrate funerals
Army getting ready to transport the coffins to the crematory
A priest getting out from a emergency morgue
The army loading the coffins into one of their trucks
A coffin arriving the emergency morgue
The emergency morgue
Army loading a coffin from the emergency morgue
Carabinieri leaving flowers on the coffins in the emergency morgue
Sanitizing the coffins in the emergency morgue
Russian soldier from a special unit sanitizing a House for the Elder
Russian soldier from a special unit sanitizing a House for the Elder
Doing Covid Tests
Nurse in charge of doing Covid Tests
Blessing 131 urns
COVID Special Unit family doctor checking on a possible positive patient
COVID Special Unit family doctor checking on a post hospitalized covid patient
The morning after I arrived in Bergamo, I joined a group of four volunteers from the West section of Bergamo's Civil Protection who were in charge of recording and watching over the dead coming from the west area of Bergamo's municipality.
Among them there we their friends, relatives and neighbours.
One story struck me the most:
It was the third or fourth day since the opening and the first coffin was just arrived. The volunteers, with help of the undertaker, lifted the coffin and gently rested it on a small cart, when all of a sudden R. a 50 years old volunteer petrified.
"What's happening?" one asked
"He is my cousin. I didn't know he died." his voice, like his spirit, broke "He was hospitalized two weeks ago. Since then we couldn't reach him and nobody called his wife or me. I didn't know he died. Nobody knows that he died."
It was the first coffin of the day.
The emergency morgue was closed on the 13th of April.
Hundreds were the dead people recorded.
Among them there we their friends, relatives and neighbours.
One story struck me the most:
It was the third or fourth day since the opening and the first coffin was just arrived. The volunteers, with help of the undertaker, lifted the coffin and gently rested it on a small cart, when all of a sudden R. a 50 years old volunteer petrified.
"What's happening?" one asked
"He is my cousin. I didn't know he died." his voice, like his spirit, broke "He was hospitalized two weeks ago. Since then we couldn't reach him and nobody called his wife or me. I didn't know he died. Nobody knows that he died."
It was the first coffin of the day.
The emergency morgue was closed on the 13th of April.
Hundreds were the dead people recorded.
