Refrigerated trailers to be used as makeshift morgues hummed outside two hospitals on as New York City deals with the surging death count in the epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus pandemic.

The last time New York took such drastic measures was after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the city medical examiner’s office was tasked with identifying tens of thousands of body parts from the 2,753 people killed in the World Trade Center collapse.

The makeshift morgues signal the historic challenge posed by the national health crisis.

New York state, where 385 people have died from the virus, has more than 37,000 of the nation’s more than 80,000 coronavirus cases.

“We have a pretty large capacity compared to hospitals,” said Davis, adding that the trucks plus the mobile tents increase the morgue capacity to 3,500 to 3,600 bodies.

Multiple refrigeration trucks were lined up at the makeshift morgue site along 30th Street and the FDR Drive parkway near Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

CNN