Politics
Satellite image ©2020 Maxar Technologies.
- The novel coronavirus pandemic has hit Iran especially hard.
- Burial pits are being expanded so rapidly that they're visible from space, based on satellite images taken by the private space technology company Maxar Technologies and first reported by the Washington Post.
- The images show that new trenches have been dug at a cemetery in Qom, Iran, and what appears to be a pile of lime, which is sometimes used in mass graves to prevent decay and manage odor.
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Burial pits have grown so large amid a devastating coronavirus outbreak in Qom, Iran, that they're visible from space, satellite imagery shows.
Along with China and Italy, Iran has been hit especially hard by coronavirus.
Dozens of lawmakers have been infected, as have senior officials - including the Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri. And an adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died from the novel coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Iran has asked the International Monetary Fund for $5 billion in emergency funding to help it fight the coronavirus outbreak.
Iranian Health Ministry Spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour on Friday said 514 people have died of the virus in Iran and 11,364 have been infected, per Fars News Agency. But media reports have suggested the Iranian government has not been forthcoming about the death toll, in an effort to mask the devastating scale of the outbreak.
The rapid expansion of mass graves in Iran underscores why there is skepticism about the Iranian government's official death toll.