The first crematorium in the Algarve should start operating, in Faro, in September 2020. The construction work for this new cemetery in the Algarve's capital began this week and will take ten months to complete.
Then, there is a month for testing and preparation, as revealed today, the 16th, by Paulo Carvalho, director of projects and assets at Servilusa, the company that won the competition launched by the Chamber of Faro and that it will be the concessionaire of the crematorium.
This recently started intervention was one of the ones that were focused on another edition of the Faro Positivo, an initiative in which the city council executive Faro shows ongoing works and future projects.
The crematorium, an infrastructure long claimed by the Algarve, will have the capacity "for six or seven daily cremations", which can take place "at any time".
It will also have two ovens, one for funerary cremations and a pyrolytic oven to burn waste associated with burials in cemeteries, such as flowers and the remains of urns.
This is currently “a big problem in the Algarve”, since open-air burning is “suppressedly prohibited” and the solution is, almost always, to bury waste in places for this purpose, inside cemeteries, according to Paulo Carvalho .
For the rest, this equipment is being built at the New Cemetery in Faro it will have everything that is usual in a structure of this nature, such as an ecumenical chapel, a waiting room and a body preparation area. It will also have «the necessary conditions to satisfy the needs of the whole Algarve and, hopefully, part of the Alentejo».
“We will also have a final farewell room, a place where family members can see the urn going into the oven. They can't see the mouth of the oven, of course, but let there be that last moment. Poorly compared, it's like the moment when the coffin comes down to earth. It is part of mourning and it is a gap that we have tried to remedy in our crematoria», said the representative of Servilusa.
All of this will cost around 1,1 million euros, which will be provided, in total, by the company that will get the concession of the crematorium. And the private partner's charges won't stop there.
«Servillusa will pay us a rent and we will still be entitled to part of the cremations. In addition, the specifications provide a discount for residents of Faro and a base price for all others», according to Rogério Bacalhau, president of the Chamber of Faro, the entity that ceded the land.
The aedile from Farense recalled the complicated history of this work, which comes from afar. “This project is over a decade old. On Sunday, the 20th, it's been ten years since I joined the Chamber and there was already a project at the time. Initially, a contest was launched that did not go ahead. Later, we launched a new contest, who was in court for years», he recalled.
At the end of 2018 the situation was, finally unlocked, which allowed the process to proceed and the work to begin. “Now I have more hope. I've been fooling around here for years," said Rogério Bacalhau.
The new crematorium is of special importance in Faro, since the county has faced serious problems of lack of space in the two existing cemeteries.
“We have had some difficulty with funerals. Our [old] Cemetery of Hope is overcrowded. Rotation has been happening, but we are talking between four and five years. At one point we had to dig holes between 3 and a half to four years old, due to lack of capacity», explained the mayor.
«Right now, with the works we've done here in the new cemetery, where we build more than 500 drawerss, this problem has been minimized. But if we don't have the crematorium, we will have to increase the capacity even more”, he added.
This new equipment solves the problem of the capacity of the two cemeteries and «it gives some comfort to families that prefer to opt for cremation, instead of putting the bodies in drawers or on the floor».
Photos: Hugo Rodrigues|Sul Informação
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