Graveyard workers in India are confronting the task of burying dozens of victims per day as the pandemic whips out of control across the country

Published Apr 27 2021 at 2:52 AM GMT

Key
Points

Graveyard workers in India are burying dozens of COVID-19 victims a day as the pandemic whips out of control across the country.
Gravediggers at Delhi's largest Muslim cemetery told Insider they're burying more than three dozen bodies every day and are running out of space.' "There is a huge difference between burying seven to eight dead bodies a day and 35 to 40," Muhammad Shamim, supervisor of Jadid Qabristan Ahle Islam said.
" Shamim said his family has worked at the cemetery for three generations and they can't recall another time when bodies were coming in so frequently.' "Before COVID, we did not face any problem in this work.
This April the number started to double again.
In fact, I would say it tripled, and we never thought in our lives there would come a time when we would have to bury 30 dead bodies every day," Shamim said.' Coronavirus cases in India surpassed 17 million with more than 352,000 new cases reported in the last 24 hours, a record and half of the world's daily new cases.' The death toll has topped 195,000 with 2,182 deaths recorded in the past day.' The country's healthcare system has been overwhelmed by the surge in cases with many hospitals running out of oxygen to treat patients.' Shamim said the cemetery had to hire three additional gravediggers to keep up with the work.' Additionally, the block of land reserved for COVID-19 victims was almost full, with space left for only 100 to 110 bodies.