Bodies wash up on Ganges banks

SCORES of bodies are washing up on the banks of the Ganges amid deaths and cremations in India of around 4 000 people a day from the novel coronavirus.

India now accounts for one in three reported virus deaths across the world, a Reuters tally shows. Its health system is overwhelmed, despite international donations of oxygen cylinders.

Rural parts of India are now also running short of wood for traditional Hindu cremations. Authorities said yesterday they were investigating the discovery of scores of bodies floating down the Ganges in two separate states. “It is very difficult to say where these dead bodies have come from,” said M P Singh, the top government official in Ghazipur district, in Uttar Pradesh. Akhand Pratap, a local resident, said “people are immersing bodies in the Ganges instead of cremation over a shortage of cremation wood”.

Daily infections hit a record 390 995 yesterday. Deaths are at just under a quarter of a million. .

A MAN rides a bicycle in the rain in Shanghai, China, yesterday. China’s population on the mainland reached 1 411 78 billion, growing 0.53% on average annually in the past decade, accord to the National Bureau of Statistics. | EPA