As the deaths due to the rain and flooding mount, mortuaries in the city are rapidly filling up and even overflowing. With relatives of many of the dead not knowing that their kin had died or being unable to come and identify the bodies, and burial grounds and crematoriums flooded, the bodies have piled up. Of the four mortuaries in the city, the ones at Government Royapettah Hospital and Government Kilpauk Hospital have handled the bulk of rain-related deaths as they fall within the jurisdictions of these deaths, doctors said.
At the Kilpauk mortuary, of 260 or so cases seen since November 7, about 50 have been rain-related deaths with about 30 due to drowning and the others due to electrocution, a source said. As of Thursday, there are around 35 unknown bodies – and the morgue is overfull, its capacity is only about 30.
“We are operating at excess capacity. There is a new mortuary that can hold 60 bodies, but it is yet to be opened,” said R. Selvakumar, head of forensic medicine at Kilpauk.
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Just a few kilometres away however, the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital’s mortuary, which has a capacity of 60, has handled only four rain-related deaths.
48 unknown cases
At Royapettah, which has seen a large number of cases, the unknown bodies are being slowly cleared by the police for burial. “Of the approximately 48 unknown cases, we have cleared 34. Only about 14 are left now. Many of these are decomposed bodies and we don’t want to keep them here for too long,” a police officer said. A source said the morgue had earlier been overflowing.
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While Government Stanley Hospital has not seen many rain-related deaths, the mortuary does have a higher than average number of unknown cases at present, said S. Balasubramanian of the forensic medicine department. As against the usual 15-odd unknown bodies, there were 28 bodies on Thursday, some of which could be unclaimed because of the rains, he said.
What is needed is more support for morgues and forensic medicine: more capacity in mortuaries to deal with disasters and more staff in the departments, said Dr. Selvakumar.
Doctors say the capacity of mortuaries to deal with calamities has
to increase