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A man wearing a full protective outfit carries a box containing the ashes of a deceased relative next to a funeral house in Wuhan, on April 1. Photo: EPA-EFE

Hurried cremation and curbed mourning rituals in Wuhan distress families of Covid-19 victims

  • Cemeteries remain closed in the city until April 30, leaving grieving families frustrated
  • Ching Ming Festival on Saturday is a reminder of anguish over unfinished business
Kyle Hui never got to see his mother one last time. He had planned to travel from Shanghai back to Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the Covid-19 outbreak was first reported, for Lunar New Year but his mother fell ill before he arrived.

She had symptoms of the disease, caused by the novel coronavirus, but test kits were not readily available at the time.

On January 14, three days after being admitted to hospital, she was put on a ventilator. She died the next day.

Hui’s older brother saw the last glimpse of their mother through a glass door as she was being wheeled into an isolation ward.

A few days later, she was wheeled out wrapped in a yellow body bag that the family was forbidden to open because of infection concerns.

Her burial arrangements were hurried. A funeral home picked up the body and cremated it. The same day, the family took the ashes to a local cemetery where the remains were buried instantly and without a ceremony.

“Normally in Wuhan, we would hold a memorial service in the morning for family and friends to say goodbye to the deceased, before cremating the body. After the ashes are buried, the family usually hosts a luncheon, then it’s considered complete,” Hui said. “What we did [for my mother] was extremely irregular.”

The grave of Kyle Hui’s mother. Photo: Handout

The burial happened so quickly there was no time to prepare a tombstone. Today, a black-and-white picture of her leans against a bare stone plate that her family has decorated with incense, fruit and flower petals.

The coronavirus outbreak, which has infected nearly a million people around the world, has forced families like Hui’s to make do with such burial arrangements, leaving them little time to say proper goodbyes to the deceased and interfering with Ching Ming plans.
Traditionally, people across China visit the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects on Ching Ming, known as the tomb sweeping day, which falls on Saturday this year.

However, strict rules restricting people’s movement to prevent the spread of the virus are still in place. These restrictions include the closure of public spaces such as cemeteries.

According to a Wuhan government notice last week, all cemeteries in the city will remain closed until April 30. Families can make bookings for cemetery staff to sweep the tomb for them.

Funerals are also not allowed, since they are considered large gatherings, also banned since the outbreak.

Thousands of Wuhan residents queued to collect the ashes of loved ones from funeral parlours after the government reopened them for families on March 23, reports Tim Wang, 41, on Weibo. Photo: Weibo
Picking up the ashes of relatives has also proven difficult. Last week, photos circulating on Chinese social media showed crowds of people – some wrapped up in protective gear from head to toe – queuing at local funeral homes, waiting to pick up the ashes of their loved ones.

Chen Huishan’s family saw the pictures and decided to wait a few days before picking up the ashes of her father-in-law, Yang Wanzhou.

Yang, 72, was infected with the virus at Wuhan Central Hospital. He went there every week to pick up medicine for Parkinson's disease, which he suffered from for more than 10 years.

He became ill quickly but could not be admitted to the hospital because of a bed shortage. For a week he went to the hospital and stood in line for hours at a time to get injections for the symptoms.

On January 23, his health took a turn for the worse. The family made a dozen phone calls for an ambulance but they were all too busy to pick Yang up. He died the following morning, on Lunar New Year's Eve. The family called a funeral home and spent the evening of the New Year holiday there.

Yang’s body was cremated immediately.

Local community workers came to the family’s door a few days ago, telling them a car would be sent for families to retrieve a loved one’s ashes. Otherwise, people are still restricted from free movement in Wuhan.

“Community workers will go with us to the burial and supervise that there are no funerals,” Chen said. “But it's understandable. It’s to prevent large cross-infections.”

A few of her friends who had lost relatives in the outbreak received 3,000 yuan (US$422) from the local government as compensation.

The National Health Commission issued a notice in February that outlined specific arrangements for the treatment of the deceased in the outbreak. Bodies needed to be disinfected and sent for cremation immediately. If the family refused, the medical facility would sign the papers and have the bodies cremated with the cooperation of local police, it said.

The bodies were to be picked up by funeral homes closest to the hospital and travel through designated roads. All bodies would be cremated and there would be no burials, no funerals and no transporting to other cities. Bodies could not be stored, and body bags could not be opened.

In early February, many funeral homes called for help online. They desperately needed protection gear, rubbing alcohol, goggles and body bags. They were short-staffed and had to work through the night.

The process left little time for the families to mourn or adjust. Some were stressed and feared getting sick themselves.

After Yang died, Chen’s family was on extreme edge about possible signs of illness. Chen and her husband, who had visited Wuhan Central Hospital with Yang, said they were scared when they started feeling pain in their lungs and short of breath, even though they had no fever.

Her mother had had a fever and put herself in isolation, while taking medicine.

“I was so scared in February I lost 5kg,” Chen said.

They also saw other family members become ill. Chen’s aunt had an accelerated heartbeat and the hospital treated it as heart disease before noticing lung infections on a CAT scan. She is being treated for Covid-19.

Many in Wuhan report feeling confused and disappointed with the way arrangements were handled during these special circumstances.

“There’s no clear policy on medical and funeral bills for people like my mother, who died before the lockdown,” Hui said.

He has been calling government departments in Wuhan this week about arrangements for his mother, but was told their work focus was to deal with those who died after the lockdown first.

Cemeteries have started offering online services. Users can click on “offerings” to decorate the tomb image on the page with fruits, flowers and incense. They can also write the names of the deceased on the tomb and leave messages.

Darren Chen, a man in the southern city of Shenzhen whose mother died in Wuhan in January, said he would only mourn online, in accordance with what the government wanted.

For him, personal closure would only happen when his mother was recognised as a Covid-19 victim.

“The cause of death on the certificate is only ‘pneumonia’,” he said. “That’s not giving the deceased justice, that's irresponsible diagnosis. As long as that stays unchanged, this will never be over.”

Wuhan’s community workers had called Chen several times, but they never mentioned his mother. They repeatedly asked about his own health, whether he had a fever. He felt disappointed that they never sent condolences about his mother, nor talked about arrangements.

His cousin, Shang Manqing, said he found a friend to help hang prayer flags around the holy lake of Namtso in Tibet as soon as restrictions lifted, as a way to mourn.

“It’s for the deceased. For our loved ones, for strangers, and for our city,” Shang said.

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