Empty oxygen cylinders are piling up almost as fast as bodies in the city of Khulna, which has become Bangladesh's coronavirus hotspot in a dire new surge.

The government has ordered a strict week-long nationwide lockdown in a bid to halt the spread of Covid-19, but Khulna's hospitals cannot cope.

Neither can relatives of the dead.

On Thursday, Khulna city recorded 46 virus deaths, according to an official count, while in earlier waves the daily death toll never went into double figures, according to an AFP report.

Most people in the city of 680,000 people say the real toll is much higher and, according to reports, graveyards cannot cope with the number of dead in nearby cities such as Satkhira.