Funeral parlour report fans fears over Wuhan death toll from coronavirus
- Magazine quotes truck driver saying he delivered thousands of funeral urns to facilities in the city last week
- Relatives of deceased only able to collect ashes in last week as centres in the city began clearing backlog
An official at Wuhan’s Civil Affairs Bureau said on Monday that the numbers would be released in the second week of June as scheduled, and that there is no plan to alter the date.
The comment came after reports that funeral homes in Wuhan have ordered thousands more urns than the official death tally of coronavirus patients in the city.
In a report on the weekend, Caixin magazine quoted a truck driver as saying he delivered about 5,000 urns on Wednesday and Thursday to the funeral parlour in Hankou district – one of eight such facilities in the city.
One photograph published with the report purportedly showed 3,500 urns stacked on the floor of the funeral home. According to official reports, Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has killed 2,535 people in Wuhan since it first emerged in December.
Wuhan, a city of about 11 million people in the province of Hubei, went into lockdown to try to control the spread of the coronavirus on January 23, a measure that included suspension of all funeral and mourning activities.