[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/SvrqUfd_El8 expand=1]
One year into the coronavirus pandemic, Brazil registered its deadliest month in March. In the 31 days that have just passed, 66,573 people were killed by COVID-19, more than double the previous monthly high. The explosion of cases is largely blamed on the local virus variant, believed to be more contagious, having now pushed Brazil over the 300,000 mark in total coronavirus deaths, second only to the United States with 553,000. Currently, however the U.S. is down to under 1,000 daily deaths while Brazil is more than 3,000.
As hospitals are pushed to the brink, funeral services and cemetery caretakers are also overwhelmed and forced to make hard choices. This week, the Cemitério da Vila Nova Cachoeirinha, São Paulo’s second largest cemetery, had to suspend burials due a to lack of graves.
Photographer Dario Oliveira captured, from above, the harrowing sight of workers performing exhumations in order to free graves.
