The City of Johannesburg is making an appeal to residents to consider alternatives to burials as it currently has four out of 37 cemeteries operational.
Westpark in Montgomery Park, Diepsloot, Waterfall (Midrand) and Olifantsvlei cemeteries are the only ones active in the city while the rest have been filled.
Between June and July when SA was in the middle of the first wave, Joburg conducted 497 Covid-related burials and 163 cremations.
Since December, there have been 55 such burials and 35 cremations.
In the period between June and July, the city also conducted 4,434 general burials and from December to date, 1,537 burials were conducted.
Joburg City Parks spokesperson Jenny Moodley said although they believed they still had about 50 years of use left from the current cemeteries, they were concerned that the cemeteries would fill up quicker than expected.
“We encourage our community to try alternative ways of burying their loved ones to avoid any eventuality that would compromise the space that we have,” said Moodley.
She said before Covid-19 hit the country, the city was conducting at least 130 burials a week but that number was now sitting 500 per week.
Since March, 5,827 people have succumbed to Coronavirus in Gauteng, with Joburg Metro recording the highest deaths at 2,070, followed by Tshwane Metro at 1,549 and Ekurhuleni Metro with 1,374. West Rand recorded 455 deaths, while Sedibeng had 379.
These figures have been climbing steadily since the outbreak of the second wave last month. Joburg has had the most infections at 124,620, followed by Tshwane with 76,421 and Ekurhuleni with 64,824 cases.
Joburg had 1,148 new cases on Tuesday while Tshwane and Ekurhuleni recorded 1,229 and 585 infections, respectively.
Tshwane Metro said it had sufficient burial space from their 13 active cemeteries despite recording a three-fold increase of weekly burials.
The city was conducting 162 funerals weekly prior Covid-19 and this number rose to 400 in the first wave of the pandemic and they are now currently seating at 600 funerals weekly.
“The city currently has 13 operational cemeteries, all of which have sufficient space for burials. The average lifespan remaining is five years in the largest region where, on average, the most burials are taking place.
"The City will be responding to the death cases as they occur and necessary preparations will be done as informed by the stats,” said Tshwane spokesperson Goitsemang Molaeng yesterday.
The City of Ekurhuleni said it was confident that it would cope with the possibility of an increase in burials.
“The general situation is that the number of burials has reduced compared to the winter months. There is still burial space available in cemeteries,” said spokesperson Mzwandile Dlamini this week.
In January last year, they were conducting about 362 burials per week and this figure currently stands at 160, with about 11 burial sites operating, while four have been closed and two (Cambrian and Rynsoord cemeteries) are expected to be filled before the end of this year.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.