“She was never married and had no children. We were her family,” said Indah, Kursiani’s 45-year-old niece, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Yet the family was somewhat fortunate to secure a burial plot. With the virus ravaging Indonesia, the densely populated capital is running out of space to bury the dead.

On Oct. 20, the morning of Kursiani’s funeral at Pondok Ranggon cemetery, three ambulances carrying coffins waited to unload the latest victims into graves dug just inches apart. Nearby, cemetery workers dug grave after grave in anticipation of more ambulances and grieving family members arriving throughout the day.

The cemetery hosts about 25 funerals a day for coronavirus victims and has been expanded 14 times since April, according to cemetery workers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly.

Jakarta has 73 cemeteries with more than 815,000 gravesites, but they have almost reached capacity because of the pandemic, which has caused the city’s average monthly death …continued .
[Source: Washington Post]