39 dead people found in container in Essex

This is just terrible.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-police-say.html?ico=pushly-notifcation-small

 

That sounds horrific, I can't imagine what it must have been like for the people in the lorry

 

Sounds like it came from Bulgaria via Holyhead, and driver is from NI, so maybe he just picked up the trailer in Wales, and didn't know what was in it?

 

Wonder what made the lorry driver check his trailer there and then? From the aerial footage it doesn't even look like he was fully parked up, but I can't be sure. The police have confirmed all 39 were discovered dead.

 

I wouldn’t think the 25 year old driver would have known what was in his trailer, why stop on an industrial estate in Grays, hardly the actions of a guilty person!

Hopefully police will get to the bottom of it, however won’t be easy as they are saying there are no forms of identification in the lorry!

R.I.P. to all those in the vehicle

 

I find it a bit distasteful that politicians are falling over each other in their haste to use the most distressed superlatives they can find. It's another offshoot of the grief Olympics.

None of their carefully crafted tweets come across as sincere.

 

Agreed - R.I.P. to all those in the vehicle

Not so sure about your first statement, you could also say - Having travelled so far with the lorry, why stop on an industrial estate in Grays? It could of been the agreed drop off point?

What we don't know is how the people were found and who called the ambulance.

Either was very sad for the the people inside and their families.

 

Yeah, that's what I thinking along the lines of with my post. Industrial estate, middle of no where (comparatively), middle of the night and the driver chooses that moment to open his refrigerated trailer? Hmmm. I know plenty of lorry drivers park up and kip overnight on industrial estates but the lorry is pretty much opposite the entrance to one place - looks like he's just pulled over to me.

 

Most vehicles come with a seal on them so anybody can tell if it's been tampered with. This seal is put on by the driver when he is satisfied with his load. Every seal has a number on it which would be in his paperwork so a different one can't be used. I'm fairly sure that's how it works. That's not to say that's whats happened on this occasion though

 

If he was opening it then he must of presumed it was empty

 

Or full of people he was really to let out?

All speculation of course. Police now saying the trailer entered the country at Purfleet and left the port at 01.05am. The truck itself came from elsewhere. They were called 35 minutes later.

 

At the risk of sounding a bit morbid, with 39 unsecured corpses in the back it's not impossible he heard them banging around as he drove and opened the back up to make sure the cargo was secure.

You can feel the movement/impact of even 10 lb unsecured items when driving a car. If the bodies were sliding around on corners etc. I've got no doubt they would be making quite a noise.

 

I'm sure there must be someone on here who's driven around with a body in the boot who can corroborate this.

 

Apparently it's becoming a more common place to drop smuggled people off. The lorry came via Zebrugge-Purfleet where there is less scrutiny & security than the Calais-Dover route. Awful tragedy.

 

I suspect that's what happened to @RookeryDad
I blame Highgrade

 

This is just like season 2 of the Wire.

 

Happens a lot. When i was working in H Wycombe a few years ago a van stopped in our company car park at 2am and 25 refugees jumped out and ran, caught on our security cameras.

 

A few more facts. Apparently it was the driver who called 999. All 39 were of 'Chinese' origin apparently. So not Syrians or Iraqis then. But why if you were a gangmaster would you smuggle your 'gang' in in a refrigerated container? Presumably you'd want them alive not dead. If you were simply people traffickers you maybe wouldn't care too much. Pack them all into a mobile morgue and let us deal with the fallout over here.

Whichever way you look at it it's simply appalling. I'm no fan of capital punishment but I could be persuaded on this occasion. I very much doubt if the driver is the most culpable here though.

 

Not seen much of GD or RC recently either ? Has there been a forum cull ?

 

I think they're all sharing a flat in Oliver Grove.

 

They tend to be insulated more and thus dampen sound. My guess would be the intent wasn't to turn it on, but someone screwed up.

I'm probably one of a small handful of people on the forum who has been exposed to temperatures in the below -25 range; there's no way anyone could possibly expect someone to be able to survive a long journey directly exposed to those kind of temperatures. I was forced to stay outside in -50 for 30 minutes once (fire alarm) and it took me two days to warm up again. When I got back inside, my eyes streamed with water for about 3 hours.

Cold absolutely f*cks you up, fast, and it doesn't let go easily.

 

Refrigerated rather than frozen though ?
Bobble hat, coat and thermals - would help keep the BO down with so many people in such a confined space.
Yes one way or the other, the traffickers screwed up either the temperature or the oxygen requirement for 39 humans in a confined space.
Alternatively maybe the 39 jumped in planning to just stow away in what they hoped was just a normal truck, shut the door and couldn't get out again ?

 

I think the lorry driver knew what he was picking up but didnt check the container until he got to the drop off point. Who phoned the Police? Just got to remember these are human beings and not immigrants, asylum seekers or part of a swarm.

 

Are you suggesting immigrants and asylum seekers are not human beings?

 

You've no idea what the driver did or didn't know. He made the 999 call initially for an ambulance.

 

39 of 'Chinese origin' jumped in? Doubt it.

 

I'm pretty sure he'sa suggesting the opposite. ie. Lots of people tend to address their immigration status first before considering they're just people like all of us.

 

I hope they get to the bottom of it, we don't want another case of wondering what really happened ala Princess Diana/Robert Maxwell scenario!

 

Once temperatures get into that range, most clothing doesn't do much. You might as well not be wearing a bobble hat for all the good it does you. Huddling up with others doesn't do much either; at best you'll just die slower.

Sustained temperatures in that range require very specialised clothing, something these people almost certainly would not have had (or been able to afford, given how they entered the country).

 

Slightly bizarrely, it appears the people trafficking scum are quicker at processing refunds than Thomas Cook:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50185788

 

Chilled at 5 or 6 degrees centigrade ?

 

How utterly tragic. When you hear the personal stories like this is stops becoming a story about "numbers" and you feel proper empathy. Texts from a young girl with her whole life in front of her, excited about moving to a "foreign land", and now apologising to her mother as she realises she's dying, suffocating in a sealed container.