With so many dead in Turkey, families forced to rush funeral rites.
KAPICAM, Turkey — The mother wept next to the simple wooden slat that marked where her son had been buried in a long, thin mound of dirt that held dozens of others lost in the devastating earthquake that struck southern Turkey.
Gone, for the time being, are the rituals in which relatives lovingly wash and shroud the departed’s body, hold a funeral, and welcome friends and relatives paying condolences. The new, crisis-driven process aims to honor the dead and quickly bury them, for both custom and public health. Adnan Beyhan, a religious official who had traveled from a faraway city to help with the earthquake response, said that the crisis conditions meant that the normal Muslim funeral rites had to be modified.
Cengizhan Ceyhan had come to the cemetery for the funeral of his sister, Saziye Ozer, and her daughter Belis, 10, who had died trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, he said. Her husband had managed to find Yakup, whom they buried that day. Since they were still looking for the others, they would take no time to fully mourn or accept condolences.The funeral process is systematized, if a bit chaotic. Bodies arriving to the cemetery are checked to make sure their deaths have been officially recorded and death certificates issued. While most of the bodies are identified, those that are not are fingerprinted by police, who sometimes also take blood samples.
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