‘I have a feeling if this continues, there will be no one left in Delhi’

These were the depressed exclamations of the head of the crematorium in Ghazipur village, east of New Delhi. The crematorium is the place that shows most clearly the devastation of Covid-19 in India.

The body of the patient Covid-19 is piled up in a crematory in New Delhi, where every four minutes, someone dies from a pandemic. Someone brought the body and left it. At the Ghazipur village crematory in eastern New Delhi, bodies were brought, one after the other. The amount of bodies was so great that ambulances and trucks transporting the dead blocked an entire road, Guardian described on April 30. Before the pandemic happened, in Ghazipur crematory staff’s memory, there was only one time that it was filled with space in a day. But now, sometime early in the morning, this place has received 150 bodies, while the maximum capacity is 38 bodies. Crematorial staff have to expand the scope of operations to parking lots but also cannot meet all demand. In the Indian capital, the second wave of Covid-19 infections is still raging with no sign of slowing down. On April 30, Delhi recorded a record number of 395 deaths and 24,235 new infections. Across India, the total number of new infections during the day was unprecedentedly high with 386,693 cases. Someone brought the body and left it Cremators in India are rushing to increase their capacity to handle 1,000 cremations a day. It is at these cremations that the destruction of Covid-19 in Delhi is being most evident. In 30 years of helping cremate the dead, Sunil Kumar Sharma, head of the Ghazipur village crematorium, said she had never thought of such a scene. “Too many people died. I have a feeling if this situation continues, there will be no one in Delhi, ”Sharma said. Normally, the body of a Covid-19 patient must be handled according to a rigorous procedure. But according to Sharma, corpses from hospitals are often not covered with protective cloths, putting cremators at risk of exposure. Some families even try to hide the death of a loved one from Covid-19. “The situation here is terrible and terrible,” said Mr. Sharma. “We have to work 20 hours a day, very tiring. My spirit seemed to have broken at the surroundings. Now there are people who bring the body and leave it, so we have to perform the ceremony to save some face for the deceased. According to the Hindu and Sikh beliefs of the Indians, a person cannot enter the door of heaven if their body is cremated without the watcher’s presence and keeping the fire on the pyre. Every day, Sharma’s crematorium consumes 60 tons of wood. “Every night, I worry about how to dispose of the body delivered tomorrow,” Mr. Sharma said. “What if it is beyond our capabilities?”. Suffering covers everywhere With thousands of recently cremated bodies, the air around Ghazipur crematorium was thick black smoke. Scattered around the ash-gray crematoriums left the day before were some offerings: mangoes, pomegranates, and orange flowers. On a nearby ambulance, a woman in a dark green sari was mumbling her prayers. In the car with her was the body of her husband, who had just died that morning because of Covid-19. The widow tried to place a red handshake on her husband’s body but was gently pushed away by a man in a protective suit to transport the body. The air around Ghazipur crematorium was thick black smoke from thousands of recent cremations. Photo: Shutterstock. Another man, Ajay Gupta, cried bitterly while the body of his brother, Ram, was placed on the crematorium. Just last week, Ram received treatment from the hospital for breathing problems. Ram’s illness had been in remission at first. I can even video call you from the hospital bed. But when the hospital ran out of oxygen, Ram did not survive. “Just a few days ago the nurse told us he would be fine,” Gupta said. Gupta is also a victim of the emerging black market in Delhi. It sells oxygen and drugs like Remdesivir to desperate families like Gupta at exorbitant prices. According to Gupta, after listening to the doctor, he used the last coin to buy Remdesivir for his brother at the black market for 630,000 rupees (about 8,500 USD), 10 times higher than normal. However, the effectiveness of Remdesivir Covid-19 is still questionable. “I felt like everything had collapsed,” Gupta said. Relatives wearing medical protective clothing deliver the body of a patient recently lost from Covid-19 in the crematory village of Ghazipur, east of Delhi. Photo: Shutterstock. Krishnan Pal, 48, who sells snacks in Delhi, is also one of those who died after repeatedly being rejected by the hospital due to overload. Pal cousin Kai Charan Kashap said they knocked on the doors of every hospital in Delhi but were unable to find an empty bed. After that, Pal was transported by his family to Agra, a city in the adjacent state of Uttar Pradesh. The hospital here still has empty beds but there is no oxygen left. In the end, Pal died on his way to Bareilly, a city in the state of Uttar Pradesh. “People are dying in the middle of the street because they can’t breathe,” said Kashap in a choked sob while waiting for his brother’s body to be transported from the morgue. Vaccine is seen as the way out of the crisis Many believe that the vaccine is the only long-term way to help India get out of the corona virus crisis. But on April 30, authorities in some parts of Delhi said plans to vaccinate people aged 18 and over had been delayed indefinitely due to lack of supply. The announcement comes just a day before the expanded immunization program is scheduled to be rolled out in Indian courts. Shortages such as in the capital Delhi are also common across this South Asian country. An immunization center in Mumbai posted “no vaccinations for the next three days” on April 30. Photo: Reuters. Delhi Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal said authorities would inject the vaccine “as soon as possible”. But some private clinics in Delhi said the vaccine is not expected to arrive for at least another month or even two. During that time, the crematory and cemetery in Delhi will continue to suffer the deadly pressure that engulfs the city every day. At the Ghazipur crematory, after sunset, all crematoriums will be lit up at the same time. Flames flared in the screams of heat and pain. Tomb diggers work non-stop in India Tomb diggers work 24 hours a day to bury those who have died from Covid-19. Their shift did not stop amid the second wave of Covid-19 in India.