Posted on 04/13/2012 8:33:50 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
The crematorium employee in the western German town of Hamelin took a last look at the coffin before pushing it inside the furnace. This was the third coffin he had processed on the morning of January 13, and the body itself weighed over 200 kilograms (440 pounds). Of that, only two kilograms of ashes were supposed to remain after cremation. But, 15 minutes later, flames shot out of the crematorium's 10-meter-high (33-foot-high) stainless-steel chimney, and parts of it began to melt.
Unable to bring the fire under control, the employee called the fire department. Firemen determined that the smoking chimney was glowing at 600 degrees Celsius (1,100 degrees Fahrenheit). They cooled it from the side and used an infrared camera to track the spread of heat through the building. It took four hours to reduce the body in the furnace to ash.
Cremations in Germany are becoming more complicated owing to an increase in obesity. At the moment, around half of the country's deceased are cremated. Likewise, roughly 15 percent of Germans are obese, and the figures are climbing.
The funeral industry has adapted to these new conditions with plus-size coffins and crematorium furnaces outfitted with larger doors. But one problem remains: Due to their high fat content, obese bodies often burn so hot that they overtax crematorium facilities. The cause of the chimney fire in Hamelin appears to have been "extreme heat due to burning a high amount of fat," according to Carl Schmidt, the crematorium's manager.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
No article references to AGW. Remarkable! Such restraint!
The funeral of King Henry VII at Westminster Abbey was marred by his obese corpse splitting open inside his coffin and, well you can guess how that went down.
King Henry VIII I meant. When he passed on his reward was not 72 virgins but 6 angry wives.
if anybody knowa anything about crematoriums it would be the germans given their experience.
Post-mortem discrimination?
If this catches on, we will see the Democrats complaining of post-mortem disenfranchisement.
I have an interesting idea! How about liposuction on the dead?
or maybe wood-chippers?
Yeah, but those were emaciated Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners and homosexuals with a very low body fat ratio.
I weigh about 360 lbs, so I’d probably cause a merry blaze, if I elected cremation.
Like Soylent Green Energy is People?
Actually five angry wives- he left a widow behind.
I thought only Americans were fat, and certainly not our fabled friends in the EU????
I know, Germans and creamatoriums. Not a good combination.
True story:
A number of years ago in the California desert, a desert rat called the local sheriff and claimed that a local facility was burning bodies. The sheriff pulled the business license and said that the facility was for “firing pottery” not burning bodies — to which the desert resident said “I was at Auschwitz!! I know what burning bodies smell like!!
Turns out the building WAS being used by an LA crematorium for its excess business — they figured the desert is so sparse no one would “smell” a thing.
Someone try telling a democRAT cremated people can't vote, and they'll ban cremations.
EWWWWWWWWWWWW!
Perhaps the crematoria should check with the Krupp steel corp to update the furance to handle higher capacity cremations.
MOST holocaust victims were emaciated, but not so those who went to Treblinka. There, the poor people were killed immediately after arrival and “processing”, e.g., having their hair shorn (if female) and their gold teeth pulled out. Sorry to be so gross, but the German camp administrators (!) figured out how to stack the fatter corpses on the pyres so as to reduce the need for petrol/gas.
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