New Indignity in Venezuela: Dead Bodies Cost Too Much

Dying is a pricey affair
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 5, 2018 1:33 PM CST
Updated Dec 5, 2018 1:48 PM CST
New Indignity in Venezuela: There's No Gas for Cremation
This June 19, 2018 photo shows a grave sites with a missing marker, right, at the Cemetery of the East in Caracas, Venezuela.   (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

How bad is the economic situation in Venezuela? Even death is too expensive, or so reports Reuters in a look at how one 27-year-old had to resort to burying her father in an unmarked common grave. Angelica Vera knew a funeral was financially out of her reach and planned to follow in the footsteps of many other Venezuelans and cremate her father at roughly one-third the price of a traditional casket burial. But in this oil-rich country, natural gas is scarce, and the cemetery in the state of Zulia lacked it, meaning it couldn't facilitate a cremation. Even if the gas is coming—Reuters interviewed some who described a 10-day wait—leaving a body in a morgue is cost-prohibitive, too: One extra day is equivalent to more than a month's salary at the minimum wage. Read the full story here. (Another victim: A vet school's horses.)

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