China's crematoriums run out of space as COVID deaths soar

COVID deaths have been rising across China. While the government has been trying to cover the situation, the country’s crematoriums tell a different story. According to several media reports, crematoriums across China have been running out of space as they struggle to meet growing demands. “Since the COVID reopening, we’ve been overloaded with work. Right now, it’s 24 hours a day. We can’t keep up,” The Wall Street Journal quoted a crematorium worker as saying. According to WSJ, cremations are even being held at odd hours. At least 200 bodies have been arriving at a crematorium in Beijing which usually used to receive 30-40 bodies in the day, the WSJ report added. Financial Times said its reporters saw body bags at a hospital designated for COVID patients. In Chongqing – a city of 30 million where authorities this week urged people with “mild” coronavirus symptoms to go to work – one crematorium told AFP they had run out of space to keep bodies.

“The number of bodies picked up in recent days is many times more than previously,” a staffer told AFP. “We have bodies assigned to us from other districts. There’s no other option,” an employee added. Another crematorium in the city said they were “extremely busy” as well. “It’s three or four times busier than in previous years, we are cremating over 40 bodies per day when before it was only a dozen or so,” AFP quoted a staffer as saying. “The whole of Guangzhou is like this. We’ve constantly been receiving calls,” they added, stressing that it was “hard to say” whether the surge in bodies was linked to COVID. In the central city of Baoding, an employee of a crematorium told AFP: “Of course we’re busy, which workplace isn’t busy now?” In the capital Beijing, local authorities on Tuesday reported just five deaths from COVID-19  – up from two the previous day. The end to mandatory testing has made the toll of China’s COVID surge difficult to track, with authorities last week admitting it is now “impossible” to tally the full scale of the sick. Hospitals are struggling and pharmacy shelves have been stripped bare in the wake of the Chinese government’s sudden decision last month to lift nearly three years of lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .