Dozens Of COVID-19 Mortuary At TPU Cikadut Bandung Collapsed

BANDUNG - Dozens of special graves for COVID-19 bodies at the Cikadut Public Cemetery (TPU), Bandung City, West Java, collapsed due to heavy rain.

Head of Technical Implementation Unit Cemetery Region 3 of the Spatial Planning Service (Distaru) of Bandung City, Sumpena, said that apart from weather factors, soil conditions in the area were not too dense after being converted into a special COVID-19 grave.

"When the burial was carried out in the dry season and now it is in the rainy season, it will surely collapse. Especially in Cikadut, the coffin is used and the quality is not good, so it becomes brittle and the soil collapses", said Sumpena in Bandung, West Java, quoted by Antara, Thursday, November 11.

In addition, he explained another factor that caused the tomb to collapse, namely the dredging of the soil was not done manually with a hoe, but using heavy equipment.

According to him, the tombs that collapsed have now been handled by Public Cemetery officers by leveling the soil and also compacting the soil.

"This is not a landslide like in Cikutra, it collapsed because it was using a crate and the crate was fragile", said Sumpena.

One of the Cikadut Public Cemetery officers, Rasef, said there were about 30 graves whose soil had collapsed. It has also notified the incident to family or heirs.

He suspected that the collapse of several graves was partly due to the inadequate quality of the coffins for COVID-19 bodies.

"It collapses quickly, if the crate is good, it usually won't collapse", said Rasef.