Iran's Historic Cemetery Is Struggling To Keep Up With The Dead Amid COVID Pandemic

For more than 50 years, a large graveyard just outside Iran's capital is where all the main burials have taken place.?

But Behesht-e-Zahra is finding it hard to keep pace with the COVID pandemic as more bodies are arriving forcing grave diggers to make new plots, as per a report in AP.?

"All of the crises that we have experienced at this cemetery over the past 50 years of its history have lasted for just a few days or a week at most," said Saeed Khaal, the cemetery's manager.?

"Never before not during earthquakes or even the country's 1980s war with Iraq has the pace of bodies flowing into Behesht-e-Zahra been so high for so long," he added.?

AP

"Now we have been in a crisis for 260 days, and it is not clear how many months more we are going to be facing this crisis," he went on to say.?

1.6 million are buried here and it stretches over 5 square km

The COVID infection tally is over 700,000 and the number of people dead exceeds 39,000. With more than half the deaths taking place in Tehran, the cemetery is under pressure.?

AP

Of course all fresh graves are for COVID victims, but a majority are.?

Khaal admits to never seeing anything like this. He admitted how this workload is adding strain on those working at the cemetery.?

"We used to accept between 150 to 170 dead bodies every day, but these days when we are experiencing the peak of deaths, we are accepting 350 bodies on average," he said.