Story highlights 80 bodies surfaced in India's holiest and most polluted river

Some people can't afford cremation and partly burn the bodies and send them into the river

New Delhi, India (CNN) Up to 80 bodies, mostly decomposed skeletons, surfaced in the Ganges, which is India's holiest river after its water level went down on Tuesday, authorities said.

Some of the corpses were half-burnt, and many just skeletal remains, said Saumya Agarwal, the chief of the riverside district of Unnao where the bodies were recovered. "Most of them are believed to be very old."

In Hinduism and some other Indian faiths, funerals are conducted by cremation. The ashes are then scattered into rivers.

The Ganges, Hinduism's holiest river, is dotted with numerous cremation spots along its shores.

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