A Mexican state in the violence-stricken southern region has shut down morgues as they were overflowing with bodies and workers could no longer bear the stench.

Morgue workers in the state of Guerrero, which has a long history of drug-violence, have launched a strike, saying they could not handle the overwhelming number of bodies piling up in the storage facilities. Post mortem work has also been affected due to shortage of staff.

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"We can no longer tolerate the odours, so work can't be done," one of the workers told a local media outlet, Reforma. On average, a morgue Guerrero receives anywhere between 8 and 10 bodies every day, with most deaths being related to drug violence. The main morgue Guerrero's capital, Chilpancingo, currently holds more than 600 dead bodies against its original capacity of 200.

"Lots of nausea. Lots of nausea. It makes you not want to eat because the stench really sticks with you," government worker Laura Reyna Benjamín told a local channel, Televisa. Images of workers examining dead bodies in the open air among body bags and examination tables have also surfaced on Twitter.

The government has promised to look into the matter and improve the sanitary conditions of the morgues. "Workers in the prosecutor's office will take the necessary precautions so that the situation that occurred today, in which the odour (from the corpses) arrived at the office and caused the workers to stop work, doesn't happen again," read an official statement released by the state government.

Drug-linked violence has been growing in many parts of Mexico ever since the government stepped up its efforts against organised drug cartels. The country recorded 9,916 murders in the first five months of 2017.