LONDON, Sept 20, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Around a quarter of a million people queued
round the clock to view the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II as it lay in state,
the UK government said Tuesday, a day after her elaborate state funeral.

Following a public holiday for the funeral, political and business life was
resuming and workers were busy clearing up the debris left by an estimated
million-plus people who lined the streets of London.

But King Charles III and the royal family will remain in mourning for another
seven days, meaning no official engagements after the new sovereign spent an
exhausting week presiding over the funeral build-up.

The queen's coffin was on display from Wednesday to early Monday inside
parliament's cavernous Westminster Hall, and the waiting time for public
mourners at one point reached 25 hours.

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said her government department was still
"crunching the numbers", but believed that around 250,000 people had passed
through the hall in total.

"It was a great sense of the community coming together," she told Sky News.

Donelan said she did not know the final cost of the state funeral at
Westminster Abbey, which entailed a vast security operation for hundreds of
foreign dignitaries.

But she said the British public would agree "that was money well spent".

"You saw so many thousands out there and I don't think anybody can suggest
that our late monarch didn't deserve that send-off, given the duty and the
selfless service that she committed to over 70 years."

Britain's new Prime Minister Liz Truss flew to the UN General Assembly hours
after delivering a biblical reading at the state funeral.

En route to New York, Truss praised the "huge outpouring of love and
affection" shown towards the late monarch, as well as the "huge amount of
warmth towards" Charles.