Fewer pyres, chaos dissipates at Delhi’s Sarai Kale Khan crematorium

Near the main gate of the crematorium, around 200 tonnes of wood, stockpiled in view of the alarming body count a month ago, lay unused and became a cause of worry for workers; they feared that if the overcast skies opened up, the rain would render the wood unusable for days.

Outside the Sarai Kale Khan crematorium in south Delhi, in a park adjacent to it, only three of the 50 makeshift pyre platforms built last month to handle the rising Covid-19 fatalities were in use on Wednesday -- a sight far removed from merely a week ago when all were occupied.

According to the government’s daily health bulletin, between April 1 and 7, there were 15 deaths a day on average. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

Near the main gate of the crematorium, around 200 tonnes of wood, stockpiled in view of the alarming body count a month ago, lay unused and became a cause of worry for workers; they feared that if the overcast skies opened up, the rain would render the wood unusable for days.

For around three weeks beginning in the second half of April, when the city was firmly in the middle of its fourth – and the deadliest yet – wave of cases so far, Delhi’s crematoriums and burial grounds were inundated with a grim wave of their own.

Crematoriums expanded into parking lots and nearby open spaces as workers hurriedly built new platforms, and scoured the city to maintain their dwindling stocks of wood.

Now, the arrival of bodies has steadied at rates seen prior to the pandemic. “Today (Wednesday), we have used only three platforms from the 50 that was built recently -- the 20 platforms inside the crematorium were full. Until two weeks ago, even after the 50 new ones were put to use, people were queuing up with bodies. For the past one week, we are getting about 20 to 30 bodies daily, which is fewer than the 70-75 bodies we were getting in April,” said Kailash, a worker at the crematorium, who goes only by his first name.

Three weeks ago, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation approved a plan to build 150 more platforms behind the crematorium, near the Yamuna banks. “The construction started about 10 days ago and within two days, workers finished building about 70-80 platforms. But since the deaths have decreased, the work has also been stopped. And we are happy that the work has stopped; nobody is happy to see more funeral pyres,” he added.

In April, when deaths began increasing, crematorium managers were taken surprise. According to them, the spike was sudden, giving them little time to make additional arrangements.

According to the government’s daily health bulletin, between April 1 and 7, there were 15 deaths a day on average. The number shot up to 58 the next week, to 192 the week after that and in the fourth week of the month, 356 fatalities were being recorded every day on average – according to official numbers.

In the first three days of May, it shot up even further -- there were over 400 deaths every day. The highest number of death recorded in a day till date was 448 on May 3.

Unofficially, many more are likely to have died without reaching a hospital.

On Wednesday, the health bulletin put the day’s death count at 235 -- the lowest since the 161 deaths on April 18. The seven-day average toll also dropped to 291 on Wednesday, the first time it fell below the 300-mark in 26 days.

Narendra Chawla, leader of the house in South Delhi Municipal Corporation, said, “The arrangement of creating additional platforms was made at a time when a huge number of bodies were reaching the cremation ground. At Sarai Kale Khan, we had created about 50 such platforms. But they weren’t enough. So we started building 150 more platforms and about 80 have been completed. We have now stopped the work as the bodies reaching the cremation ground have reduced at least by 50%.”