The Venezuelan government has now said that it may not be possible to embalm the body of late President Hugo Chavez.

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's acting president, acknowledged on Wednesday ( 13 March ) that it could be too late to do so, as "preparatory steps would have to have been taken much earlier".

"Russian and German scientists have arrived to embalm Chavez and they tell us it's very difficult because the process should have started earlier ... Maybe we can't do it," Maduro said.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americ...125831528.html

The embalming process needs to be started within hours of death, unless the body is refrigerated.

It’s a shame they didn’t promptly recruit Filipino mortician / embalmer Frank Malabed’s services ! When Marcos died in exile in Hawaii in 1989 and the family wanted his body preserved for an eventual return to the Philippines, Malabed shuttled between Manila and Honolulu every month for four years to take care of the body.

Finally the Philippine government allowed it to be flown to Marcos’s home town of Batac. Imelda Marcos had demanded a hero’s burial in Manila for her husband.

When that was rejected, Malabed ensured the body remained intact ever since – the corpse remains in in a glass case for pubic display in a mausoleum built at the family’s provincial home.

Obviously this is not a popular topic, but is of interest because of the Philippines connection … and sadly death affects everyone – even if the vast majority neither wish, nor could afford, permanent embalming.