Rain temporarily shuts down St Mary’s Cemetery

As the burial grounds were submerged in rainwater, the management directs families to bury their dear departed at a facility in Kasimedu

The St Mary’s Cemetery in Mandaveli is submerged in water after intense rain that hit Chennai last week.

Father Marcel, assistant parish priest of Our Lady of Guidance Church on Lazarus Church Road, who visited the cemetery on November 11, said a majority of the graves are under water. “In the morning, there was two-and-a-half feet of water,” he says. The sprawling cemetery belongs to the Greater Chennai Corporation but is maintained by the church for nearly 20 years.

The cemetery is already grappling with space crunch and the heavy rains seem to have only added to its woes.