{"id":102978,"date":"2020-05-30T15:06:06","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T22:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=102978"},"modified":"2020-05-30T15:06:06","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T22:06:06","slug":"sri-lanka-fears-new-coronavirus-outbreak-after-funeral-breaks-curfew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/05\/30\/sri-lanka-fears-new-coronavirus-outbreak-after-funeral-breaks-curfew\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka fears new coronavirus outbreak after funeral breaks curfew"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Straits Times<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"People
People carrying the coffin of Arumugam Thondaman in the central tea capital of Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka, on May 30, 2020.PHOTO: AFP <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lankan authorities fear a fresh outbreak of coronavirus infections after thousands of mourners paid their respects to the body of a respected union leader on Saturday (May 31), defying a curfew and social distancing rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large crowds were seen jostling to bid farewell to Arumugam Thondaman, the leader of a tea plantation union and a government minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 55-year-old died of a heart attack on Tuesday and is due to be cremated on Sunday at Nuwara Eliya, in the country’s tea-growing highlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authorities had imposed a 24-hour curfew in an unsuccessful attempt to stop crowds from visiting Thondaman’s body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Crowd control has been difficult. Distraught supporters have tried to push down police barriers to get into a building and pay their respects,” a police officer in the area said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large crowds had also gathered at the office of his Ceylon Worker’s Congress party in Colombo to view his body before the funeral procession went east for final rites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A statement by a group of government doctors warned the funeral “could undermine public confidence in measures taken so far to contain the spread of the virus and lead to a second wave.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Straits Times COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lankan authorities fear a fresh outbreak of coronavirus infections after thousands of mourners paid their respects to the body of a respected union leader on Saturday (May 31), defying a curfew and social distancing rules. Large crowds were seen jostling to bid farewell to Arumugam Thondaman, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}