Covid in Uttar Pradesh: Coronavirus overwhelms India's most populous state

India is reeling under a severe second wave of Covid-19 and many states are struggling to cope with the rising numbers. Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, is among the worst affected in the country and its people are suffering even as authorities insist the situation is under control, reports the BBC's Geeta Pandey.

Kanwal Jeet Singh's 58-year-old father Niranjan Pal Singh died on Friday in an ambulance while being ferried from one hospital to another. They had been turned away by four hospitals for a lack of beds.

"It was a heart-wrenching day for me," he told me on the phone from his home in Kanpur city. "I believe if he had received treatment on time, he would have lived. But no-one helped us, the police, the health authorities or the government."

With a total of 851,620 infections and 9,830 deaths since the pandemic began last year, Uttar Pradesh had not done too badly during the first wave that ravaged many other states. But the second wave has brought it to the brink.

Authorities say the situation is under control. But disturbing images of overcrowded testing centres, hospitals turning away patients and funeral pyres burning round the clock at cremation grounds in the state capital, Lucknow, and other major cities such as Varanasi, Kanpur and Allahabad have made national headlines.

With 240 million people, Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state. Home to every sixth Indian, if it was a separate country, it would be the fifth largest by population in the world, just behind China, India, US and Indonesia - and bigger than Pakistan and Brazil.