The preparations for the dig are ready to begin. Workers place blue barriers on the ground to protect the fragile tundra environment, and set up a fence around the cemetery to keep the curious at a distance and give the scientists enough of a work area to erect their makeshift morgue. The white wooden crosses marking the graves of the miners were gently lifted and wrapped.
After some discussion, the group decides to open the coffin to salvage whatever scraps of tissue and bone they can find, in a last ditch effort to get genetic traces of the virus. They will also continue to dig underneath the coffins in case there are more coffins buried further underground.
But when Dr. Smith and his other team members took samples from the coffins, they finally got the break they were looking for. “Sampling of the bodies happened on Thursday. It was a long day and we were elated with the quality of the tissue,” he says.”It was most extraordinary — there were no clothes on the bodies. Some had been wrapped in layers of newspaper.”
If there was any doubt that these bodies belonged to the miners who died of the Spanish flu, fears were put to rest when the last coffin was opened. “There was a date from 1917 — we knew that it was the bodies we were looking for.”
Dr. Smith and his colleagues had permission from the families to collect samples from the six of the seven bodies. They retrieved slivers of bones, teeth and tissue clinging to the skeletal frame. Most importantly, the team was able to find some pulmonary tissue. This is a key discovery since the virus was most prevalent in the lungs of its victims.
After weeks of anticipation and disappointment, there was renewed hope. The scientists stubbornly claimed that even very small samples from the decomposing bodies can reveal much information about the virus.
The hunt for the killer will now extend to the lab. Microbiologists will use a procedure called PCR (polmerase chain reaction) to search for the genetic residue left by the Spanish flu. The PCR procedure will be able to take even a small shred of material, then amplify it many times and determine the genetic sequence and compare it to other viruses. But the attempt to learn something about the virus will be crippled by the fact that no frozen live virus was found. Until the results are released, it will remain unclear whether the pilgrimage to Longyearbyen was a potential lifesaver of millions, or a heroic effort in futility.