When someone dies in tightly knit Duruelo de la Sierra, the whole community walks from the church service to the cemetery, accompanying the deceased to their final resting place. In times ofpandemic, just a few relatives are allowed, reports AP.
"You are used to seeing a funeral with lots of people," said Alberto Abad, a 54-year-old carpenter who's also the mayor and sees the virus as tearing at his town's social fabric. "It touches you because you know all the people who live here."
Spain has been one of the hardest-hit countries in the pandemic, with over 25,400 confirmed deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. But while Madrid has been the epicenter of the suffering, each death in the countryside is a sorely felt blow for struggling villages.
Duruelo de la Sierra lies in Spain's north-central province of Soria, one of Europe's most sparsely populated areas, home to shrinking communities amid a landscape dotted by abandoned villages.
