A severe heatwave gripping France has sparked a devastating mortuary crisis, leaving funeral directors overwhelmed and families desperate to find refrigerated storage for their deceased loved ones.
According to France’s public health agency, there were at least 1,000 excess deaths recorded from Wednesday to Sunday, and officials warn that these numbers are bound to increase as the data is finalized. The staggering human toll has pushed mortuary infrastructure to its absolute limit.
For Zouhaier Hertelli, an undertaker based in Orly, near Paris, the surge has resulted in an agonizing backlog. His facility’s cold storage room, which features 32 temperature-controlled compartments, is completely full. Each occupied unit currently holds a labeled body awaiting burial or cremation.
“We’re completely full,” Hertelli stated, noting that the non-stop rush began late in the week. Over a single weekend, he received 150 calls for assistance and had to turn away all 150 bodies due to a lack of space. The panicked pleas for help have come not just from grieving families, but also from retirement homes and the police.
The lack of capacity has created a harrowing reality for those left behind. Hertelli described callers as being at their “wits’ end” and in a state of complete panic, terrified that they have no solutions as their relatives’ bodies begin to decompose.
To cope with the overflow, Hertelli has petitioned local authorities for permission to use a refrigerated trailer to store more bodies. These desperate measures are compounded by severe delays in the funeral industry; the unusually high number of fatalities means bodies must stay in cold storage far longer than normal. Currently, those seeking cremations face agonizing wait times, with appointments already being pushed out as far as July 10.
Unfortunately, relief from the oppressive weather remains elusive. National weather forecaster Meteo-France reports that while temperatures have slightly dropped from their record highs, they still hover around 30 degrees Celsius across much of the country. Temperatures are expected to climb once again over the weekend and remain high into next week, threatening to prolong this unprecedented crisis.