Brazil's Biggest Cemetery Races To Keep Up With Virus
Gulf Today|May 22, 2020
More than 290,000 people in Brazil have been infected with the new coronavirus — the third-highest number in the world — and nearly 19,000 have died
Brazil's Biggest Cemetery Races To Keep Up With Virus

The day after Brazil registered a record 1,179 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours, Sao Paulo grave digger Moises Francisco notched a bleak milestone of his own.

Francisco works at Vila Formosa, the biggest cemetery in Latin America, a seemingly endless field of graves on the east side of Sao Paulo.

In normal times, he usually has about 15 bodies waiting for him when he gets to work at 8:00 am, he said.

On Wednesday, the day after Brazil’s death toll leapt by more than 1,000 in a day for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, there were 33 bodies waiting to be buried.

A troubling surge in coronavirus deaths in Brazil is keeping the crew at Vila Formosa busy.

“We’ve been working 12-hour days, burying them one after the other. It doesn’t stop,” said one, wearing a white protective suit, mask and plastic face shield to protect himself from the virus.

In the background, backhoes rumbled and shovels clanked as his colleagues scrambled to keep up with the crush of new corpses in Sao Paulo, the epicenter of the pandemic in Brazil.

This story is from the May 22, 2020 edition of Gulf Today.

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This story is from the May 22, 2020 edition of Gulf Today.

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