The unfolding crisis is most visceral in India s overwhelmed graveyards and crematoriums, and in heartbreaking images of gasping patients dying on their way to hospitals due to lack of oxygen.
Burial grounds in the capital New Delhi are running out of space. Bright, glowing funeral pyres light up the night sky in other badly hit cities.
In the central city of Bhopal, some crematoriums have increased their capacity from dozens of pyres to more than 50. Yet officials say there are still hours-long waits.
At the city’s Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat crematorium, workers said they cremated more than 110 people on Saturday, even as government figures in the entire city of 1.8 million put the total number of virus deaths at just 10.
Virus ‘swallows people’ amid oxygen shortage in surge
NEW DELHI, April 25, (AP): India’s crematoriums and burial grounds are being overwhelmed by the devastating new surge of infections tearing through the populous country with terrifying speed, depleting the supply of life-saving oxygen to critical levels and leaving patients to die while waiting in line to see doctors. For the fourth straight day, India on Sunday set a global daily record for new infections, spurred by an insidious, new variant that emerged here, undermining the government’s premature claims of victory over the pandemic.
Flames rise from cremation pyres of victims of a fire that broke out in Vijay Vallabh COVID-19 hospital, at Virar, near Mumbai, india, Friday, April 23, 2021. A fire killed 13 COVID-19 patients in a hospital in western india early Friday as an extreme surge in coronavirus infections leaves the nation short of medical care and oxygen. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
India s crematoriums overwhelmed as COVID-19 patients scramble for medical help
With oxygen continuing to be in short supply, many family members in India are left on their own to ferry COVID-19 patients from hospital to hospital in search of treatment, and crematoriums are expanding capacity amid a devastating new surge of infections.
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The Associated Press ·
Posted: Apr 25, 2021 11:54 AM ET | Last Updated: April 25
A relative of a person who died of COVID-19 is consoled after a cremation in Jammu, India, on Sunday. For the fourth straight day, India set a global daily record of new COVID-19 infections, with 349,691 confirmed cases and another 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours. (Channi Anand/The Associated Press)
India engulfed in a devastating new surge of COVID-19, overwhelming burial grounds and crematoriums
Updated 1:28 PM;
Today 1:28 PM
A relative of a person who died of COVID-19 breaks down during cremation in Jammu, India, Sunday, April 25, 2021. India’s crematoriums and burial grounds are being overwhelmed by the devastating new surge of infections tearing through the populous country with terrifying speed, depleting the supply of life-saving oxygen to critical levels and leaving patients to die while waiting in line to see doctors.AP Photo/Channi Anand
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NEW DELHI With life-saving oxygen in short supply, family members in India are left on their own to ferry coronavirus patients from hospital to hospital in search of treatment as the country is engulfed in a devastating new surge of infections. Too often their efforts end in mourning.