Siegburg North Cemetery Siegburg has refrigerated container collected
Siegburg · At the beginning of the Corona pandemic, the city of Siegburg set up a refrigerated container at its North Cemetery to be prepared should the number of dead rise sharply. Now it is being dismantled again.
In April 2020, the city of Siegburg had it set up at its northern cemetery purely as a precaution in case the Corona situation came to a head. The refrigerated container increased the capacity for storing the deceased by twelve additional places. One and a half years later, the container is now to be dismantled. As the City of Siegburg announced on Wednesday, a low-loader will arrive at Alte Lohmarer Straße on Wednesday, November 3. The road will be closed between 2 and 5 p.m. in front of the cemetery.
When the additional cold storage room came to the North Cemetery, there had not yet been any deaths in Siegburg caused by the Coronavirus. The mayor at the time had described the decision for the container as a preventive step and hoped that it would ultimately never be used. The hope has not been fulfilled. As of Wednesday, 62 Siegburg residents have died after contracting Covid 19 since the Corona pandemic began. And the additional cold room has seen varying levels of use over the past few months.
"During the Corona peak, more than half of the spaces were in use," said city spokesperson Jan Gerull when asked. That is why the city had extended the rental contract for the container, which was initially rented for only six months, once again in September 2020. According to Gerull, not only post-Covid 19 deceased from Siegburg were kept in the additional space at the North Cemetery until their burial. According to Gerull, this facilitated the mandatory, separate storage of deceased Covid 19 patients. Special hygiene and disinfection regulations apply to them.
Original text: Nadine Quadt
Translation: Mareike Graepel
