Dozens of alleged COVID victims found in Ganges in India News Coronavirus pandemic News

Residents in the area believe the bodies were dumped into the river because the crematoria were overcrowded or families could not afford the funeral pyres.

Dozens of people have died as a result of COVID-19 on the banks of the Ganges River in northern India, officials said on Monday.

Ashok Kumar district official said about 40 bodies had been washed in the Buxar district near the border between Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, two of India’s poorest states.

“We have directed concerned officials to dispose of all bodies so that they can be buried or cremated,” Kumar told AFP news agency.

The pandemic is spreading rapidly across the vast countryside of India, local health facilities and crematoria and cemeteries are in full swing.

Neighbors told AFP they believed the bodies were dumped into the river because the cremation sites were overcrowded or because relatives could not pay for firewood for the funeral pyre.

“It’s really moving for us,” Kameshwar Pandey told the news agency.

Some media outlets reported that the number of corpses could be as high as 100.

The reports mentioned other officials, some of whom were swollen and partially burned and may have been in the river for several days.

According to official statistics, there are currently approximately 4,000 people dying from coronavirus in India every day and the death toll is almost 250,000.

Citing anecdotal evidence from incinerators, many experts believe that the actual daily number may be several times higher.

This is especially true of the current growth that has spread beyond large cities to rural areas with few hospitals and poor records.