Haunting images of India’s mass COVID-19 cremation site

Pictures of a mass cremation site in India have emerged, with doctors begging for help as the country is crushed by a new COVID-19 wave.

India has been forced to create a makeshift mass cremation site as the country’s latest wave of COVID-19 infections sees hospitals and crematoriums overflow.

On Monday, India recorded another day of record coronavirus figures, with 352,991 new infections and 2812 deaths.

The spike in deaths has seen crematoriums across the country unable to keep up with the continual stream of COVID-19 victims.

In order to keep up with demand, Ghazipur crematorium in New Delhi was forced to set up a makeshift crematorium site in the car park.

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Burning pyres of victims who lost their lives due to the COVID-19 coronavirus are seen at a cremation ground in New Delhi. Picture: Jewel Samad/AFP

A man carries a stretcher at a cremation ground in New Delhi. Picture: Jewel Samad/AFP

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“There are so many bodies that we have added space for 20 more pyres at the Ghazipur crematorium. There is usually a waiting time of three to four hours,” a senior official from the East civic body told The Indian Express.

“On Friday, the GTB mortuary alone had 47 bodies due to this. But we have now managed to cremate them, and more on Saturday. A body takes five to six hours to burn.”

Doctors beg for help as hospitals struggle under infections

Hospitals are also being crushed under the new wave of infections, with limited supplies leaving doctors begging for help.

Over the past week, multiple Indian states have reported running out of medical oxygen, with patients dying as a result.

New Delhi medic, Dr Gautam Singh, posted a desperate video to social media on Sunday begging for critical medical supplies to keep his patients alive.

“Please send oxygen to us,” he said through a choked voice.

“My patients are dying.”

A patient breathes with the help of oxygen provided by a Gurdwara, a place of worship for Sikhs, outside a parked car along the roadside in Ghaziabad. Picture: Sajjad Hussain/AFP

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Trains carrying nearly 150 tonnes of liquid oxygen have been sent out to the worst-affected areas of the country.

Numbers may be much higher than those being reported

Many experts are predicting the current wave will not peak for at least three weeks and that the real death toll and case count are much higher than what is being reported.

There are fears infections could soon hit 500,000 per day, and the nation’s fatality rate means that there could be 5700 deaths per day at the peak.

Based on the current rates of infections and deaths, health researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predict there will be almost one million COVID deaths in India by August.

As the situation in India continues to deteriorate, the Australian government is reportedly considering locking down the borders with India.

It comes amid revelations the Perth lockdown was sparked by a man was allowed to travel to India to attend his own wedding.

Countries rally to help send supplies to India

Scott Morrison is set to consider further restricting flights from the country today, with the Prime Minister already announcing last week that flights from the country would be scaled back by 30 per cent.

The Australian government is also considering sending oxygen and ventilators to help with the crisis.

“India is literally gasping for oxygen,” Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Monday.

Multiple countries have pledged aid to India, with the US and Britain rushing ventilators and vaccine materials to the country.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his country would do “all it can” to help India, with nine airline containers of medical supplies set to arrive in the country on Tuesday.

In the US, the White House said it was making vaccine-production material, therapeutics, tests, ventilators and protective equipment immediately available to India.

France, Germany and Canada have similarly also pledged support.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has described the situation in Indian as “beyond heartbreaking”.

“WHO is doing everything we can, providing critical equipment and supplies,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

He said the UN health agency was among other things sending “thousands of oxygen concentrators, prefabricated mobile field hospitals and laboratory supplies”.

The WHO also said it had transferred more than 2600 of its experts from various programs, including polio and tuberculosis, to work with Indian health authorities to help respond to the pandemic.

– with AFP