COVID-19: Indonesia digs 6,000 graves as capital runs out of burial spaces

September 29, 2020 7:36 pm

Daily grind: One man digs a grave at the COVID-19 burial ground at Pondok Ranggon public cemetery in East Jakarta, on Monday, while another worker wearing personal protective gear helps him. The latter was originally tasked with carrying the bodies of COVID-19 victims, but he was needed to help the gravediggers, who have been under pressure due to the large number of burials.(JP/P.J. Leo)

The Indonesian authorities have commenced the digging of 6,000 additional graves for COVID-19 victims.

The burial site, which spreads across a two-hectare plot of land, is located at the Rorotan public cemetery in the northern part of Jakarta, capital of Indonesia.

Jakarta remains the epicentre of Indonesia’s COVID-19 outbreak, while the country is the worst-hit across Southeast Asia.

Hari Nugroho, head of Jakarta Bina Marga road agency, said the administration is preparing the land as COVID-19 deaths have continued to rise.

He said the project started on September 17 and is expected to finish in December.

Nugroho was quoted by Jakarta Post, the city’s local media, as saying that construction progress for the project is currently at four percent.

“We’re preparing the land and building a road to access the cemetery. Construction progress is at 4 percent,” he said.

“We expect this 2-hectare burial space to accommodate 6,000 funerals.”

Nadi bin Eji, the management officer of Pondok Ranggon public cemetery in East Jakarta, had earlier said there was only space left for another 1,100 COVID-19 burials in the cemetery’s southern area of 7,000 square metres.

The capacity has been projected to be insufficient towards October, as Eji said the remaining land may only be able to accommodate around 400 bodies.

Data from Worldometers reveals that Indonesia has recorded 282,724 cases of COVID-19.

Although, 210,437 patients have recovered from the viral infection, the country has confirmed 10,601 deaths.

One million people have now died of COVID-19 globally, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The data shows that the death toll from the disease reached 1,000,555 on Tuesday after thousands more died in the last 24 hours.

The United States remains the worst-hit as it accounts for one in every five COVID-19 patients that have died.

The US has reported 205,031 deaths, followed by Brazil with 142,058 deaths, and India which has recorded 95,542 deaths.

Mexico and the United Kingdom are also among the worst-hit with 76,430 and 42,090 deaths, respectively.

As of Monday night, Nigeria recorded 58,460 COVID-19 cases, but only 7,454, representing 12.7 percent of the confirmed infections, are still active; at least 1,111 have died while roughly 50,000 have recovered.