Workers uncovered three large jugs filled with the bodies of 29 fetuses as well as other assorted body parts and organs while excavating a radioactive waste site in Kazakhstan, newspaper Express K reported Wednesday.
The containers were found by factory workers at the Ulbinsky Metallurgical Factory in the town of Ust-Kamenogorsk, the paper said.
Investigators located patient records at a medical facility on the factory's premises, identifying the origin of the contents, which included stillborn, aborted and abandoned babies, amputated limbs and removed organs.
Doctors at the facility told police that the burial practice began after it was discovered that workers had been exposed to unsafe levels of uranium and that even their amputated limbs and the fetuses posed a danger to others.
That discovery prompted the medical facility to begin sealing the fetuses and surgically removed body parts in jugs and burying them to prevent further exposure to radioactive material.
The police announced that a criminal case will not be opened, citing a lack of evidence of wrongdoing.