OSTRAVA, Czech Republic (AP) – All three cremation rooms are operating around the clock, while the storage capacity for crates has been increased repeatedly.
Despite all efforts, the largest crematorium in the Czech Republic, in the northeastern city of Ostrava, has been overwhelmed by an increasing number of pandemic victims.
On Thursday, cars from funeral homes were delivered every few minutes, sometimes with “COVID” written on them. Today, the crematorium receives more than 100 coffins every day, roughly double the maximum cremation capacity.
With new confirmed COVID-19 infections around record highs, the situation appears to be getting worse.
Authorities in Ostrava have planned to build a fourth furnace, but have meanwhile sought help from the government’s central crisis committee to coordinate pandemics.
“It’s an extraordinary situation,” said Katerina Sebestova, a deputy mayor in Ostrava. “Nobody here remembers anything like that.” The facility is owned by the Ostrava City Hall.
“It is simply because we have died 60% more than a year ago. So we are dealing with storage capacity and the capacity to cremate, ”she said.
Up to 1,000 bodies were cremated in Ostrava every month before the pandemic struck. The number rose to 1,550 in November and 1,570 in December after an increase in late October, crematorium director Ivo Furmancik said.
The Czech Republic was spared its worst pandemic in the spring, but saw its health care system collapse in the fall, around the time the peak started. It has been hit hard again with new infections hitting a record high of 17,668 on Wednesday, a record for the second day in a row.
The increase in the number of infections is likely to be followed again by an increase in the number of deaths.
“To tell the truth, I don’t expect the situation to get any better, but unfortunately probably worse,” said Furmancik.
The crematorium has built an overflow cold storage container to double its storage capacity with 60 coffins, and has further strengthened it by adding a pair of portable freezers for an additional 100. But the cremation chambers can’t take it anymore.
“We have been working non-stop for two and a half months without breaks for maintenance,” said Furmancik. So this is really not an optimal situation. How long can this take? I am afraid that this intensive use could seriously damage the crematoria at any time. “
The country of 10.7 million has 794,740 confirmed cases and recorded 12,621 deaths. November was the deadliest month with 4,937 dead.
Ostrava is the capital of the Moravia-Silesia region, which, along with another region, exceeds the number of virus fatalities in the country with about 1,500 deaths.
Home Secretary Jan Hamacek, who heads the Central Crisis Commission, has promised to create a system to distribute bodies to other crematoria across the country, but some have already indicated they are reaching their own borders.
“Another, more difficult option is that we only take the number of the deceased that we can cremate,” Furmancik said.
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