A weekend schedule for All Saints’ Day propelled foot traffic beyond historic averages at the country’s largest burial ground, pushing single-day turnout near the 1.4 million mark.
The Manila Police District (MPD) reported Monday that nearly 1.4 million visitors entered Manila North Cemetery between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Nov. 1.
MPD spokesperson Maj. Philipp Ines attributed the significant turnout to November 1 falling on a Sunday, which allowed larger family groups to travel together.
“We expect that because it [November 1] fell on a Sunday,” Ines said in an ambush interview.
The single-day total surpassed turnout from the same period last year, when recorded visitors reached approximately 1.1 million.
Crowd arrivals extended into Monday as families observed All Souls’ Day.
By 11 a.m. on Monday, police monitoring logged an additional 228,000 visitors entering the cemetery gates.
The influx temporarily stretched crowd density across the 54-hectare municipal facility.
Established in 1904, Manila North Cemetery has an estimated holding capacity of about one million graves, meaning single-day visitor counts on Sunday exceeded the total number of interments managed within its grounds.