Among India’s 1.3 billion people, 2.9 million corona infections are now registered. The number of corona-related deaths has reached nearly 400,000. Hundreds of the dead have been buried along the Ganges River.
Now more people are worried about the environmental consequences, if the rainy season leads the buried to the water.
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– When the rain comes, the sand will dissolve. The bodies will be visible and end up in the river. Such pollution will be harmful to people who have water as a drinking source, and the animals that live there, says Professor NB Singh to BBC.
Deeper graves
May was the least forty bodies found in the river. Indian authorities believe that the bodies ended up there as a result of cremation of victims of covid-19 along the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh – as the capacity of many crematoria in the country has exploded, or because the relatives can not afford to pay for firewood used for cremation.
Ordføreren i Prayagraj, Abhilasha Gupta Nandi, says to the BBC that people lack the facilities to care for their dead.
SOON UNDER WATER: At Phafamau ghat, the dead are visible, right by the river, covered only with cloth. The rainy season can cause everyone to end up under water. Photo: SANJAY KANOJIA / AFP / NTB view more
“People do not have enough wood to cremate, so they make shallow graves and cover them with sand,” the mayor told the BBC.
As a measure, the authorities are now using excavators to dig deeper graves so that the dead do not end up on the surface.
– We try to move them away from the sandbanks. Some of the bodies are so old and in poor condition that they can not be moved, Mayor Nandi tells the BBC.
Sacred and vital
The river Ganges is over 2510 kilometers long, and is the holiest river in Hinduism. It is referred to as “Mother Ganges”, and is seen as nourishing and cleansing. The water from the river is often brought in sealed jars for weddings, or given to the sick.
Presten gopal tyagi says to the BBC that everything from large factories to fishermen and sellers depend on the Ganges.
“If the Ganges does not survive, believe me, then the country will be destroyed,” the priest told the BBC.
According to the BBC, the Ganges is one of the world’s most polluted rivers, with around three billion liters of sewage leaking out daily.
