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A28 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 2 May 2020
Virus surge in Brazil brings a coffin shortage, morgue chaos

By DIANE JEANTET and the virus has meant that excessive has since been The next day at Rio's Hos- bulance services Francis
ALAN CLENDENNING the numbers may be much filled. Latin America's grim- pital Salgado Filho in a Fuji blamed a recent surge
Associated Press higher. Before the out- mest scenes occurred last lower-middle class neigh- of deaths in homes on coro-
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — In break, the city of Manaus, month in Ecuador's city of borhood, Clovis de Castro, navirus patients who were
Brazil's bustling Amazon city the capital of the state, Guayaquil, where residents whose ailing sister Genina discharged from hospitals
of Manaus, so many peo- with mild symptoms, only to
ple have died within days have their conditions dete-
in the coronavirus pan- riorate rapidly.
demic that coffins had to Paramedics don't have
be stacked on top of each the training to identify CO-
other in long, hastily dug VID-19 as a cause of death,
trenches in a city cemetery. he said, and many relatives
Some despairing relatives have lied about their loved
reluctantly chose crema- ones' symptoms to avoid
tion for loved ones to avoid the corpses being handled
burying them in those com- as though they were con-
mon graves. tagious.
Now, with Brazil emerging "They think that if they get
as Latin America's corona- that diagnosis, then their
virus epicenter with more loved one will be removed
than 6,000 deaths, even in a sealed plastic bag,
the coffins are running out they'll never see him or her
in Manaus. The national fu- again, and they won't even
neral home association has have a funeral," Fuji said.
pleaded for an urgent air- Authorities in Sao Paulo
lift of coffins from Sao Pau- dug hundreds of graves
lo, 2,700 kilometers (1,700 last month in anticipation
miles) away, because of a rise in deaths. Bolson-
Manaus has no paved The family of Carmen Valeria watch her remains as they are placed into a niche by cemetery aro has likened the coro-
roads connecting it to the workers at the Iraja cemetery in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, April 30, 2020. navirus to "a little flu" and
rest of the country. Associated Press. insists that sweeping state
The city of about 2 mil- measures to close all but
lion people carved from was recording an average said they had to leave had just died, found himself essential business are more
the jungle has been over- of 20-35 deaths a day, ac- bodies on the street after helping out in the hospi- damaging than the illness.
whelmed by death in part cording to the mayor. Now, morgues, cemeteries and tal's morgue. He waited six On April 2, he questioned
because it's the main site it is recording at least 130 a funeral homes were over- hours to sort out death cer- whether photos by The As-
where those from remote day, data from the state's whelmed. tificate paperwork in what sociated Press of the new
Amazon communities can health secretary show. Many in Brazil fear the rising he described as a chaotic graves were "fake news" or
get medical services, ac- People in the region also deaths will hit hardest in the scene in the morgue, with "sensationalism."
cording to Lourival Pan- have been widely ignoring favelas, the vast neighbor- grieving relatives arriv- By Thursday, all those graves
hozzi, president of the Bra- isolation measures. hoods of the poor that are ing to identify bodies and were filled with the dead,
zilian Association of Funeral There also are signs in the well-known in Rio and Sao only one worker available as were dozens of other
Service Providers. much larger cities of Rio de Paulo but which also exist in to move corpses. At one new ones, according to im-
As of April 30, Brazil's Health Janeiro and Sao Paulo that most big Brazilian cities and point, he was asked to lend ages by the AP photogra-
Ministry said that there were suggest authorities may not even in smaller ones. a hand. pher who took the original
over 5,200 confirmed cases be able to handle a huge "There is a great fear that "I had to help a person to photos and revisited the
of COVID-19 in Amazonas increase in the death toll. uncontrolled contamina- put a body in a coffin," de site on Sao Paulo's eastern
state and 425 deaths, al- A field of fresh graves that tion will happen there," Castro said, adding that region. Refrigerated trucks
though there are concerns was dismissed in April by said Panhozzi, whose group the experience made him to hold overflows of bodies
that inadequate testing for President Jair Bolsonaro as represents Brazil's 13,400 pri- "realize that people need are now seen outside hos-
vate funeral companies. help, the hospital needs pitals and cemeteries.
In Rio's Complexo do Ale- help, the country needs In Manaus early Thursday,
mao cluster of favelas, the help." Raimundo Costa do Nas-
body of Luiz Carlos da Ro- De Castro left with a death cimento, 86, died of pneu-
cha, 36, lay untouched for certificate saying his sister's monia in his home. Funeral
more than 12 hours Tues- cause of death was unde- workers were so swamped
day. Relatives didn't know termined. He was angry that his relatives had to
why he died but said he that no autopsy was con- wait 10 hours for someone
had epilepsy. ducted that might have to retrieve his body.
The state's military police, confirmed his suspicion she A week after Panhozzi's as-
which normally picks up died of COVID-19 or com- sociation appealed for the
bodies found outside, no plications from the disease. coffins for Manaus, he said
longer does so for nonvio- "Why hide this stuff?" he the request is still being con-
lent deaths, said an officer asked. sidered. "That won't work,"
at the scene who would Sao Paulo director of am- he said. "I need it now." q
not give his name. He said
without elaborating that
the policy change was due
Neighbors cover the the body of Luiz Carlos Da Rocha, 36, with to the coronavirus.
a sheet, as he lies on a street where he dropped dead at the The military police press of-
Alemao Complex slum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, April fice did not respond to re-
28, 2020. quests for comment. linda.reijnders@cspnv.com
Associated Press.