MUMBAI, India â The bodies have burned for so long at crematoriums in the western state of Gujarat that furnaces have started to melt.
Firewood for funeral pyres is rationed and sparse, leaving the dead half-cremated on the banks of the Ganges. Gravediggers in the capital New Delhi are in such high demand that families are hiring them to excavate plots while stricken loved ones are still alive.
All across India, a trail of death and misery is devastating a country whose leaders boasted of defeating the coronavirus just a few months ago. An explosion of new cases fueled by the so-called double mutant variant of the coronavirus first discovered in India is now pushing the nationâs overburdened health care system toward collapse.
The bodies have burned for so long at crematoriums in India s western state of Gujarat that furnaces have started to melt. Firewood for funeral pyres is rationed and sparse, leaving the dead half-cremated on the banks of the Ganges. Gravediggers in the capital New Delhi are in such high demand that families are hiring them to excavate plots while stricken loved ones are still alive. All across India, a trail of death and misery is devastating a country whose leaders boasted of defeating the coronavirus just a few months ago. An explosion of new cases fuelled by the so-called double mutant variant of the coronavirus first discovered in India is now pushing the nation s overburdened healthcare system towards collapse.
In multiple countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has reached one of its bleakest points yet.
The crisis exposing the divide between rich and poor nations threatens to prolong the pandemic just as Western countries such as the United States have stepped up vaccines and loosened COVID-19 restrictions.
India also thought it was turning the corner at the start of the year after undergoing a painful lockdown that was politically unpopular and left millions of mostly migrant workers jobless. With only a few thousand reported daily cases in the country of 1.4 billion, a sense of triumphalism had taken root.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party claimed COVID-19 had been “defeated” under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The health minister said India had reached the “endgame” of the disease. People started to emerge from isolation, relishing the opportunity to return to public gatherings.