India’s covid-19 tragedy: Photos and videos show a nation on the brink

India’s crematoriums are inundated. Hospitals have run out of oxygen. Daily case numbers keep climbing.

The Biden administration promised to send help to the country Sunday, as India marked a record high in confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths — only to break those records again Monday with more than 350,000 new cases and 2,800 deaths.

Crematoriums, flooded with the dead, are skipping personal ceremonies and Hindu rituals to keep up with the bodies.

“The virus is swallowing our city’s people like a monster,” an official in the central city of Bhopal told the Associated Press. “… We are just burning bodies as they arrive. It is as if we are in the middle of a war.”

In hospitals, oxygen is in short supply. While nations have pledged or provided canisters and other assistance, the health infrastructure in the country has collapsed. Hospital beds are hard to find, and people are dying in line while waiting for care. Some have turned to the black market to obtain medicine or care.

As the virus continues to spread, vaccines are in high demand. The country’s Health Ministry said Sunday that it has administered more than 140 million doses in 99 days. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that anyone over 18 would be eligible for a jab beginning May 1. But inoculating the country of more than 1.3 billion people remains a daunting task.

Public anger has turned on the Modi government, which critics say allowed the country to reopen too quickly after a dramatic drop in case numbers throughout the winter. Now, lockdowns have been imposed across the country, with violators facing arrest or fines.

The damaging second wave is bringing tragedy to many homes, and experts warn limited testing supplies means the massive case count doesn’t tell the whole story. As more countries mobilize to send aid, some say the government could have acted sooner to stave off such devastation.

“They should have looked at what was going on in other parts of the world and understood that it was a matter of time before they would be in a similar situation,” Krutika Kuppalli, assistant professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina, told the AP.

At least one person is dying every four minutes in the capital, New Delhi.