Foreign Property News | Posted by Hnin Ei Khin
BRAZIL is digging up bodies in cemeteries to make room for coronavirus victims - as its death toll surpasses the UK's to become the second highest in the world.
The country has become the epicentre of the outbreak in South America, with over 830,000 confirmed cases and at least 41,952 people known to have died.
Sao Paulo, which with a population of over 12million is Brazil's largest city, is one of the worst-hit regions on the continent, and has so far seen 5,480 deaths.
Aerial pictures previously showed rows of pre-dug graves to accommodate the city's victims.
And yesterday its municipal funeral service said the remains of people who died at least three years ago are being exhumed to make more space.
The bones will be put in numbered bags and kept temporarily in storage containers that will be delivered to several cemeteries across the city over the next 15 days.
The remains will eventually be placed in public ossuaries, the statement said.
Health experts have expressed concern that Brazil's lockdown measures are already being eased when the country's outbreak is still yet to pass its peak.
Speaking on Friday, Dr Michael Ryan, the World Health Organisation's emergencies chief, said: "Overall the health system is still coping in Brazil, although, having said that, with the sustained number of severe cases that remains to be seen." Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro, who previously dismissed coronavirus as "a little flu", has come under increasing pressure over his handling of the pandemic.
Pictures showed people digging and burying themselves in mock graves on a beach in Rio de Janeiro this week in protest at the country's death toll.
Officials at Sao Paulo's Vila Formosa cemetery, the largest cemetery in Latin America, have said 1,654 people were buried at the site in April, up more than 500 on the previous month.
"With this opening of malls and stores we get even more worried," said Adenilson Costa, a gravedigger at the cemetery.
"We are not in the curve. We are in the peak and people aren't aware.
"This isn't over. Now is the worrisome moment. And there are still people out."
Ref: The Sun
