COVID-19 in India: Crematoriums out of gas and wood as second wave hits

Surat, India: Gas and firewood stoves at a crematorium in the western Indian state of Gujarat have been working so long out a breakthrough the COVID-19 pandemic that metal bands have begun to melt.“We are working around the clock at 100 percent capacity to cremate bodies on time,” Kamlesh Sailor, the director of the trust that runs the crematorium in the diamond-polishing city of Surat, told the Reuters news agency.And with clinics full and oxygen and medicines in short supply in an already creaky health system, some big cities are coming far larger numbers of funerals and burials under coronavirus protocols than official COVID-19 death tolls, according to crematorium and mortuary workers, media and a review of government data.India’s daily COVID-19 cases extracted from activity levels on Tuesday but stayed above the 200,000 mark for a sixth-straight day, with cases increasing by 259,170 over the last 24 hours. Deaths rose by a record 1,761, health ministry data showed.Officially, almost 180,000 Indians are dead from coronavirus, 15,000 of them this month, although some think the real number may be higher.Indian social statements and records reports have been flooded with horrifying pictures of row upon row of glowing pyres and crematoriums unable to cope.‘Haven’t seen so many dead bodies’In the western state of Gujarat, many crematoriums in Surat, Jamnagar and Ahmedabad are working round the clock with three to four times more bodies than normal.In the diamond hub of Surat, Gujarat’s second-largest city, Sailor’s Kurukshetra crematorium and a second crematorium known as Umra have cremated more than 100 bodies a day under COVID-19 orders over the last week, far in excess of the city’s official daily coronavirus death toll of approximately 25, according to conversations with workers. Prashant Kabrawala, a trustee of Narayan Trust, which runs a third city crematorium called Ashwinikumar, declined to provide the number of bodies permitted under the virus’ rules but said cremations there had tripled in recent weeks.