Furnaces in electric crematoria are breaking down

BBMP hopes makeshift open crematoria with more capacity will ease the load

May 01, 2021 10:40 pm | Updated May 05, 2021 10:09 am IST - Bengaluru

A file photo of ambulances carrying bodies of COVID-19 victims waiting outside the crematorium at Medi Agrahara in Yelahanka.

A file photo of ambulances carrying bodies of COVID-19 victims waiting outside the crematorium at Medi Agrahara in Yelahanka.

It’s not just the city’s health infrastructure that is straining under the sheer volume of COVID-19 cases. Unable to bear the daily load of bodies, furnaces in Bengaluru’s 12 electric crematoria, which are functioning beyond their capacity, are breaking down.

In the last week alone, three furnaces in Kudlu and Mysuru Road crematoria broke down. They are up and running again, but it is evident that they are not enough to cope with the death toll. More furnaces are on the verge of breakdown, said civic officials.

This has spurred the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Pakile (BBMP) to start mass burning in open crematoria using firewood. Images of multiple pyres burning simultaneously, similar to those from Delhi, depict the extent to which the country’s IT capital is ravaged by the pandemic.

The makeshift crematorium at Tavarekere, which started operating earlier this week, has the capacity to cremate 26 bodies at once But that too is not enough. Another makeshift crematorium is coming up at the Mavallipura landfill, where the civic body is working towards building a capacity to cremate 50 bodies at a time.

“These open crematoria will decongest the electric ones in the city. This way, people need not have to wait in long queues. We cannot build electric crematoria at a short notice and hence this is the only way out,” said Sarfaraz Khan, BBMP Joint Commissioner who is overseeing cremations in the city.

Each of the 12 crematoria in the city has two furnaces that can burn up to five bodies a day, say civic officials. Even as the official death toll for the city — 137 on Wednesday, 143 on Thursday, and 93 on Friday — suggests the capacity is enough, but the ground reality seems entirely different.

Somashekhar, whose young relative died of COVID-19 recently, said he had to wait for two days at a city crematorium to conduct the last rites. “The body was kept on a pavement in the crematorium for an entire night. There were so many ambulances and bodies, with many quarrels over jumping the queue erupting often,” he recounted his ordeal.

Civic officials acknowledge the fact that crematoria are getting more bodies than the official death toll. They attribute it to gaps in the BBMP’s ability to capture deaths outside the hospital system and those who have tested negative but have the infection and the glut of bodies at crematoria from neighbouring districts.

Residents around open crematoria oppose BBMP move

Residents of Mavallipura, who have been fighting the pollution caused by landfill for many years now, are opposing the upcoming open crematorium.

Ramesh, one of the residents of the village leading the protests, said that while it was not respectful to cremate the dead in a garbage landfill, it would also further add to the pollution problems in a village already reeling from the adverse impacts of the landfill. “There is a High Court order directing the civic body to use the land only for biomining,” he said.

Discarded PPE kits, billowing smoke from burning 50 bodies at once and the ash reaching the already polluted water table, are causes for concerns, he said.

Residents of Nanjamba Agrahara, an area adjoining the crematorium at T.R. Mills where many bodies are being burnt using firewood, are also up in arms as they have to live with the constant fumes from the pyres. “We have to sit in houses closing all windows and doors to protect ourselves from billowing smoke,” a woman said.

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