Several major Indian cities are reporting far larger numbers of cremations and burials than official death tolls suggest. Al Jazeera reports that in Gujarat state, gas and firewood furnaces at a Gujarat crematorium have been running ceaselessly, causing the metal parts to melt. Kamlesh Sailor, the president of the trust that runs the crematorium in the city of Surat said, “We are working around the clock at 100 percent capacity to cremate bodies on time.”

India’s daily COVID-19 cases remained steadily above the 200 000 mark for a sixth consecutive day on Tuesday, with cases increasing by 260 000 over the last 24 hours. While official statistics indicate that 180 000 Indians have died from the coronavirus, 15 000 in April alone. Al Jazeera reports that many crematoriums in Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Ahmedabad are operating around the clock with three to four times more bodies than normal.

In Surat, two crematoriums in the city have cremated more than 100 bodies a day under COVID-19 protocols over the last week. Al Jazeera reports that Surat reports an official daily coronavirus death toll of approximately 25.Another crematorium in the city declined, under the virus’ protocols, to provide the number of bodies received but revealed that it had had to perform three times the normal amount of cremations in recent weeks. Prashant Kabrawala, said, “I have been regularly going to the crematorium since 1987, and been involved in its day-to-day functioning since 2005, but I haven’t seen so many dead bodies coming for cremation in all these years, even during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1994 and floods in 2006.”

Al Jazeera reports that the iron frames inside yet another crematorium in in Surat melted because there was no time to let the furnaces cool, and that the chimney of one electric furnace in Ahmedabad cracked and collapsed after being in constant use for up to 20 hours every day for the past two weeks. Some crematoriums in Lucknow ran out of wood and asked people to bring it themselves.

The figures do not take into account burials in the Muslim community.

Umm Muhammed Umar