Crematoria overwhelmed, dormant mortuaries to operate again

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon inspects a mortuary in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, Sunday. [YONHAP]

Seoul officials Monday vowed to operate more mortuaries as local crematoria struggle to keep up with the rising Covid-19 death toll.

A mortuary in Goyang, Gyeonggi, and another in Seocho District, southern Seoul, both of which are managed by the Seoul Metropolitan Government but have been dormant since 2003, will soon resume operations to deal with the backlog of bodies, Seoul said. Together, the two mortuaries can store 16 bodies in freezing temperatures before they are cremated.

In Gangnam District, southern Seoul, a mortuary that can store up to 30 bodies opened Monday at a medical center that was set to close next month. The Seoul city government said 50 storage facilities will be added in the coming weeks, allowing 80 bodies to be stored there.

A Seoul official said the city’s short-term goal was to add 150 storage facilities in total.

As Covid-19 cases in Korea surged in recent weeks with the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, so have the number of deaths, throwing funeral halls and mortuaries into chaos.

Families that fail to find an empty spot have been forced to extend their funeral periods from the usual three — the most common practice, in which the body of the deceased is cremated on the third day after death — to four, five or even six days.

The Seoul government said up to half of all families in the capital who lost a loved one were unwillingly holding funerals for up to six to seven days as of March 16. By March 24, the fraction rose to nearly 60 percent.

Some families who couldn’t afford the wait have moved their funerals to other cities or provinces.

As of Sunday midnight, out of the estimated 17,500 people who have died of the coronavirus, nearly half took their last breath in March, when the Omicron spread peaked. Given that patients who died from Covid-19 are usually sick for two to three weeks, health experts warned that the death toll may climb throughout April.

On Sunday, 218 people died across the nation. Fatalities climaxed on March 23 when 469 deaths were logged, followed by March 29, when 432 deaths were registered. The country’s peak of Covid-19 infections was observed on March 16, when 621,205 people tested positive.

In response to the ensuing mayhem at funeral services, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched a so-called emergency operation system for cremation facilities on March 24 and allowed crematoria across the city to increase operations by nearly 70 percent.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said Monday that the city government would consider building more crematoria in preparation for future emergencies like the Covid-19 pandemic.

BY LEE SU-MIN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]