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By: Express Web Desk | New Delhi |
November 26, 2020 12:05:24 pm
A mink is seen at the farm of Henrik Nordgaard Hansen and Ann-Mona Kulsoe Larsen near Naestved, Denmark, November 6, 2020. Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via Reuters. After thousands of mink were slaughtered in Denmark due to fears of a mutated strain of Covid-19 spreading among human beings, the dead animals now appear to be rising from their graves.
But local authorities in the West Jutland region have said that there is a scientific reason behind the zombie-like emergence of the dead mink from the mass graves in which they were buried, the Guardian reported.
“As the bodies decay, gases can be formed,” Thomas Kristensen, a national police spokesman, told state broadcaster DR. “This causes the whole thing to expand a little. In this way, in the worst cases, the mink get pushed out of the ground.”
Police in West Jutland are now trying to combat the problem by shovelling extra soil on top of the corpses, which are typically buried in a 1 metre-deep trench, according to the Guardian report. “This is a natural process,” Kristensen said. “Unfortunately, one metre of soil is not just one metre of soil – it depends on what type of soil it is. The problem is that the sandy soil in West Jutland is too light. So we have had to lay more soil on top.”
But according to local media reports, residents in West Jutland are concerned that the graves are located too close to lakes and underground water reserves and may, as a result, contaminate water supplies in the region. Some local political leaders have suggested cremating mink corpses, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten reported.
Earlier this month, Denmark announced its plan to cull more than 15 million mink after a mutated form of Covid-19 began passing from these animals to humans. “The mutated virus in mink may pose a risk to the effectiveness of a future vaccine,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at a press conference.