Essex truck with 39 dead bodies does not come from Bulgaria: PM

"Desperate and dangerous situation"

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Irish authorities would carry out any investigations necessary if it was established that the truck had passed through Ireland.

Police officers in forensic suits spent the day inspecting the large white container on the truck next to warehouses and had sealed off much of the surrounding area of the industrial site with large green barriers as they carried out their investigation.

The truck was later driven away to a secure location at nearby Tilbury Docks so the bodies could be recovered.

"At this stage, we have not identified where the victims are from or their identities and we anticipate this could be a lengthy process," Essex Police Deputy Chief Constable Pippa Mills told reporters.

"I appreciate how much attention this incident will continue to attract and the public and media appetite to understand what's happened. We also need to understand what has happened," she added.

For years, illegal immigrants have attempted to reach Britain stowed away in the back of trucks, often seeking to reach the United Kingdom from the European mainland.

Separately on Wednesday, police in the neighbouring county of Kent found nine people alive in a truck on the M20 motorway, heading towards London, Sky News reported.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said the latest deaths were an unbelievable human tragedy that needed answers.

"Can we just think for a moment of what it must have been like for those 39 people, obviously in a desperate and dangerous situation, for their lives to end, suffocated to death in a container," he said.

                                                                                   Xinhua/AP/Reuters