Bodies Pile Up in China as Covid Surge Overwhelms Crematoriums
- Funeral home worker says ‘the whole system is paralyzed’
- ‘We can’t afford to die’: Soaring cremation prices stir anger
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For five days the elderly Chinese woman’s corpse lay decomposing in the Shanghai house she shared with her family before a hearse finally arrived to take away her remains.
“We’re lucky it’s the cold winter time,” a relative said last week at Shanghai’s Longhua Funeral Home, recounting the ordeal as the family waited their turn to say goodbye along with roughly 300 other masked mourners, many of whom asked not to be identified discussing sensitive issues. While the octogenarian woman didn’t die of Covid-19, the explosion of cases across China is overwhelming crematoriums, making it hard for anyone to find an open slot.