With the increase in the number of bodies at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital mortuary, and more bodies added every day due to COVID-19 deaths, the Coimbatore Corporation has asked crematoria managers in the city to cremate more bodies.
After visiting a few electric crematoria, Corporation Commissioner P. Kumaravel Pandian asked their managers to increase the working hours and deploy more manpower, if necessary, to cremate as many bodies as possible.
His visit and instructions to the crematoria followed a call from the hospital authorities to increase cremations to reduce the number of bodies at the mortuary, according to sources.
The increase in cremations in the Corporation’s crematoria was also due to death in Coimbatore of people who had come here from neighbouring towns and districts for COVID-19 treatment.
As per instructions, the kin of such persons who had succumbed here were encouraged to cremate or bury the body here and not take it to their native. Therefore, the body count increased and put more load on crematoria, the sources said.
The Corporation has 12 electric crematoria that are managed on its behalf by various trusts.
The sources said the Commissioner asked the managers to start taking in bodies from 7 a.m., without reserving the time from 7 a.m. to noon for non-COVID-19 bodies. The objective was to ensure that each of the 12 crematoria cremated a minimum of 16 bodies.
At present, each crematorium handled eight to 12 bodies a day, and did not take in bodies after 6 p.m.
But, now the crematoria were cremating the last body by 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. By the time the workers there finished their work, it was around midnight. The Corporation had also readied a few burial grounds to handle more bodies, if necessary, the sources said.
