CALUMPIT, Bulacan ,Philippines – Two weeks before Halloween, residents of this town got an early trick or treat as sealed concrete burial vaults floated in floodwaters and almost breached the gate of the Calumpit Garden Memorial Park in Barangay Balungao.
Although floodwaters have receded as of Friday afternoon, the burial vaults remain scattered in the cemetery. The memorial park’s caretaker, Amay Villasan, was able to close the steel gate to keep the vaults inside the park’s premises.
Some residents of this town thought the news was a big joke while others believed the burial vaults were unearthed during the floods.
But Villasan explained that the sealed concrete burial vaults have never been lowered into the ground due to unpaid memorial plans of the families of the dead.
“If the vaults have been buried, no matter what we do we will not be able to get payments anymore from the families of the dead,” he said.
Villasan said some of the sealed vaults have been above ground for months while they wait for the remaining payments.
He, however, said the burial vaults are safe, as all of them were sealed.
As this developed, other cemeteries here and in the nearby coastal town of Hagonoy also went under water because of floods brought by typhoon “Pedring.”
Rice lands, meanwhile, were not only submerged in water but were in fact buried in sand.
Even backyards, roads and other open spaces were also covered in sand two feet deep due to the rush of floodwaters during the typhoon.