SAO PAULO — Brazil’s biggest city on Thursday sped up efforts to empty old graves, making room for a soaring number of COVID-19 deaths as Sao Paulo city hall registered record daily burials this week.
Gravediggers in the Vila New Cachoeirinha cemetery in the city’s northern reaches worked in white hazmat suits to open the tombs of people buried years ago, bagging decomposed remains for removal to another location.
Relocating remains is standard in cemetery operations, said the municipal secretary responsible for funeral services, in a statement. But it has taken on renewed urgency as Brazil suffers its worse coronavirus wave since the pandemic began over a year ago.
On Wed…
Keep on reading: Sao Paulo exhumes old graves to make space for rising COVID-19 burials