As per The Guardian, Catherine Corless, a local historian in County Galway, Ireland, was the first to sound the alarm about the harrowing past of the institution. Corless’ research uncovered the names of 798 infants who are believed to have been buried at the home, some in a disused septic tank.

Excavation crews began sealing off the site yesterday (June 16), ahead of digging for the remains next month.

“There are so many babies, children just discarded here,” Corless told Agence France-Presse.

Corless alleges that many of the youngsters who died at the institution were discarded in a septic tank referred to as “the pit”. Just two of the suspected 798 children were officially buried in a nearby cemetery, with the rest presumably lying in a mass grave without a coffin or gravestone, and with no record of their burial.