After 68 die in Venezula jail fire, a new horror: Many of the bodies will be buried three-at-a-time in a mass grave

Venezuelan officials have remained largely silent on how one of the worst jail fires in their nation’s history happened

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Relatives grieve during the funeral on Friday for many of those who perished in a fire at a police station jail in Valencia, Venezuela. Sixty-eight people were killed in the blaze on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:30am, 31 Mar 2018Updated: 6:08am, 31 Mar 2018

Sixty-eight people died side by side when flames tore through an overcrowded police station jail in Venezuela on Wednesday. Many of them will be buried side by side, too.

Weeping relatives arrived at the central cemetery in the industrial city of Valencia on Friday carrying the caskets of many of the 68 people killed in the fire to place them in a freshly dug mass tomb.

Cemetery workers said they were prepared to bury at least 32 people two days after the blaze in three-deep graves separated by a layer of breeze block.

Relatives carry the coffin containing the remains of Jose Manuel Perez, 28, to the mass burial site in Valencia, Venezuela, on March 30, 2018. Cemetery workers said they were prepared to bury at least 32 people two days after the blaze in three-deep graves separated by a layer of breeze block. Photo: AP

Simple white crosses with their handwritten names, dates of birth and shared death date were put around the tomb.

“How am I going to forget seeing my husband burned?” asked Wilca Gonzalez, 36, whose husband was the first to be interred on Friday. “How can you forget that?”