They’re burning the dead in Puerto Ricoby digby
Evidently, the low “body count” that Trump says Puerto Rico should be so proud of is completely phony. No surprise. It never made any sense. But the cover up is really twisted because it means that the families of the dead won’t qualify for aid.
The Puerto Rican government told BuzzFeed News Friday that it allowed 911 bodies to be cremated since Hurricane Maria made landfall, and that not one of them were physically examined by a government medical examiner to determine if it should be included in the official death toll.
Every one of the 911 died of “natural causes” not related to the devastating storm, said Karixia Ortiz Serrano, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety who is also speaking for the Institute of Forensic Sciences — which is in charge of confirming hurricane deaths. The “natural causes” designations were made by reviewing records, not actually examining the bodies, she said.
The government’s revelation comes after BuzzFeed News reported earlier Friday that directors of funeral homes and crematoriums in two municipalities were permitted by the government to burn the bodies of many people the directors thought died as a result of the hurricane — without a government pathologist examining the corpses first to determine if they should be counted in the official death toll.
The current death toll stands at 51. Twenty of those official deaths were cremations.
The death toll has become a critically important indicator of how relief efforts are going — because President Trump made it one. It is also important for families of victims to claim federal relief aid.
It’s so hard to believe that this has happened and the president and it’s about 27th on the list of Trump administration atrocities.
Once again, as I say every day —