A funeral director made the macabre discovery after going to the mortuary of a new hospital which opened in the Cypriot capital three weeks ago, to collect a body for burial, Cypriot newspapers reported.

Failing to find it there, he went to the old de-commissioned hospital Friday and found two corpses in freezers which had been switched off.

One of the bodies was that of a Pole, the other a Moldovan, local papers reported, adding that the condition of one was so bad that it had to be buried immediately.

"It seems the persons in charge did not exercise the necessary diligence and there was poor coordination," Health Minister Haris Charalambous told state TV.