Funeral Home Left Corpse at Room Temperature... Goyang City Imposes Fine

Making False Claims at the District Office During a Return Visit

Goyang City Hall.

[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Kang Wooseok] Amid a surge in COVID-19 deaths causing funeral homes to become overwhelmed, a funeral home located in Goyang-si, Gyeonggi Province, was caught leaving bodies at room temperature outside of refrigeration.

On the 30th, Goyang City announced that it imposed a fine of 1.5 million KRW on funeral home A in Deogyang-gu for violating the Funeral Services Act.

During an on-site inspection by the local district office on the 29th, it was discovered that funeral home A stored about 10 bodies in a place other than the refrigerator in the mortuary.

Furthermore, when district office staff revisited on the 30th, funeral home A claimed that all the problematic bodies had already been either sent off or cremated, but this was proven false.

According to the investigation by district office staff, five bodies had been hidden inside a private ambulance and were later moved late in the afternoon to a funeral home in the Yongin area.

Under the Funeral Services Act, mortuaries must be equipped with freezing or refrigeration facilities to prevent decomposition and the spread of infectious agents such as viruses, and the indoor temperature of the mortuary must be maintained below 4 degrees Celsius.

On the day of the violation, the temperature inside the funeral home's mortuary was found to be above 10 degrees Celsius.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.