OSTRAVA, Czech Republic (AP) – All three cremation chambers are working all day, while the storage capacity of coffers has been repeatedly increased.
Despite all efforts, the largest crematorium in the Czech Republic, in the northeastern city of Ostrava, has been overwhelmed by a growing number of pandemic victims.
On Thursday, funeral home cars delivered caskets every few minutes, some with “COVID” written on them. Currently, the crematorium receives more than 100 coffins a day, about twice its maximum cremation capacity.
With new infections confirmed by COVID-19 around record highs, the situation seems to be getting worse.
Ostrava authorities have accelerated plans to build a fourth furnace, but in the meantime have called on the government’s central crisis committee for help coordinating the pandemic.
“It’s an extraordinary situation,” said Katerina Sebestova, Ostrava’s deputy mayor. “Nobody remembers anything like that here.” The facility belongs to the Ostrava City Council.
“It’s simply because we have 60% more deaths than a year ago. Therefore, we have to deal with storage capacity and the ability to burn, ”he said.
Up to 1,000 bodies a month were cremated in Ostrava before the pandemic occurred. The figure rose to 1,550 in November and 1,570 in December after a rise in late October, said crematorium director Ivo Furmancik.
The Czech Republic saved the worst from the pandemic in the spring just to see how it approached its health care system in the fall, roughly at the time the rise began. It has once again been hit hard by new infections that hit a record high of 17,668 on Wednesday, a record set for the second day in a row.
It is likely that again the increase in infections will be followed by an increase in deaths.
“Honestly, I hope the situation doesn’t improve, but unfortunately it will probably get worse,” Furmancik said.
The crematorium has built an overflowing cold storage container to double its storage capacity by 60 coffins, and has further increased it by adding a couple of mobile freezers for another 100. But cremation chambers can’t stand it any longer. .
“For two and a half months we’ve been working non-stop with no maintenance breaks,” Furmancik said. “It simply came to our notice then. How long can it last? I’m concerned that because of this intensive use, crematoria could be severely damaged at any time. “
The 10.7 million country has recorded 794,740 confirmed cases and 12,621 deaths. November was the deadliest month with 4,937 deaths.
Ostrava is the capital of the Moravian-Silesian region, which, along with another region, exceeds the number of virus deaths in the country with about 1,500 deaths.
Interior Minister Jan Hamacek, who heads the central crisis committee, has promised to create a system to distribute bodies to other crematoria across the country, but some have already indicated they are reaching their own limits.
“Another tougher option is that we will only take the number of dead that we are able to burn,” Furmancik said.
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