Stacks Of Coffins: German Crematorium Struggles In Pandemic

Meissen, Germany, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Jan, 2021 ) :Some coffins are marked "infection risk", others have "corona" scrawled in chalk, many have the box for "no memorial service" ticked, though the hall for such ceremonies has been turned into a temporary mortuary anyway.

As Germany's Meissen crematorium struggles to cope with an explosion in deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in the region, coffins are stacked up to three high or even stored in hallways awaiting cremation.

Largely spared in the first wave of the outbreak, the eastern state of Saxony has topped Germany's worst-hit zone for weeks in the second wave.

In the three decades he has worked at the crematorium in Meissen, Joerg Schaldach has not seen such high numbers of deaths sustained over such a long period of time.

"It started in mid-November, the numbers kept rising," Schaldach, who runs the site, told AFP.

"The problem is that the cold storage capacity is now full. We are in a state of catastrophe," he said, explaining that there was no choice but to use the memorial hall to hold bodies.

Benches and chairs usually used by mourners at memorial services have been stacked up at the back.

Germany shuttered restaurants and cultural or leisure facilities from November, and later also closed schools and most shops in December to halt the second wave.

But on Thursday, the country saw a new high in daily deaths, at 1,244.

Overall, the death toll stands at 43,881, according to the Robert Koch Institute.

Other crematoriums in coronavirus hotspots have also warned they are at their limit.

The city of Dresden on Wednesday said that a hall used to store flood protection equipment would serve as a temporary mortuary.

Nuremberg has brought in cold storage containers as the crematorium ran out of space.

Across the border on Monday, the Czech Republic said it was prohibiting cremations on its territory of bodies "imported" from neighbouring countries.

Schaldach believes that German authorities could have done more earlier to prevent the second wave of infections, including imposing mandatory testing at elderly care homes or tougher mask requirements.

"They were caught napping in the summer," he said.

He believes corona deniers who travelled from all over Germany to the city of Leipzig in Saxony for a huge demonstration in November could have also helped spread the disease.

"What I would like to say to the corona sceptics is: come and join us, help us move the coffins.

"We have stacked up a whole lot of coffins -- that means we have moved 750 tonnes of deceased (people).