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Kudus cemeteries, hospitals overwhelmed by post-Idul Fitri COVID-19 surge
Three weeks after Idul Fitri, Kudus has been overwhelmed by a devastating surge in coronavirus cases
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A self-isolation room is prepared in Kudus, Central Java ahead of Idul Fitri in May 2020. (Antara/Yusuf Nugroho)
K
ristianto Eko Wibowo used all the strength he had to carry each breathless body and lay them to rest in an open graveyard in Kudus, Central Java.
As a cemetery worker Kristianto is well acquainted with burials, but nothing like that of the scale the coronavirus outbreak brought upon his hometown in late May. Waves of bodies waited in a long line to be laid to rest in the industrial city that was fast running out of burial space.
“We were overwhelmed,” Kristianto told The Jakarta Post on Monday. “Our team is very limited but dead bodies keep coming.”
As graveyard spaces filled up, Kristianto said, he and 14 other cemetery workers had to choose which bodies would be picked up from the regional hospitals’ swelling mortuary. On one day, they buried nearly 30 bodies.
“There have been lines of bodies at the hospitals. There could be delays of up to two hours before they are taken by the ambulance to the cemetery,” he said.
After days of hassle and exhaustion, he was able to get help from locals. There are now 25 of them working on the frontlines to bury those who died of COVID-19. “We take the bodies to the cemetery and they help bury them,” Kristianto said.
A 34-year-old general practitioner working at one clinic in Kudus also had to make the difficult decision of choosing which patients would be treated first among dozens.
