SAO PAULO, April 23 (Xinhua) -- The mayor of Brazil's biggest city Sao Paulo on Thursday unveiled an emergency plan to build thousands more grave sites at city cemeteries to prepare for the expected rise in deaths due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
"We cannot have the same situation they did in Guayaquil, in Ecuador, or in New York, in the United States," Sao Paulo Mayor Bruno Covas said, referring to those cities' overrun hospital morgues.
The goal is to dig 13,000 graves and expand the operational capacity of burial services to stave off a collapse of the system, he said.
Sao Paulo, which has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, has registered nearly 1,000 deaths from COVID-19 in one month.
"Hospitals are at 70 percent of capacity, and that's why we have to prepare for the worst period of the pandemic in our city," said Covas, who was accompanied by Sao Paulo state governor Joao Doria, during the daily press conference on the outbreak.
The city has also hired more cemetery staff to deal with an expected rise in burials from 240 a day to 400 a day, and purchased 15,000 body bags. Enditem
