Catarroja's Gravedigger Buried 7,000 People

Salvador Pons has spent about 30 years burying the dead in Catarroja, a town in Valencia’s l’Horta Sud region, and he now estimates that number at roughly 7,000 people. In an interview published on May 18 by Heraldo, Pons said the work had not made him emotionally numb and that cemetery staff received little recognition from authorities. Pons, who is widely known in the town by the nickname “Cacau,” said the job carried a daily emotional cost because each burial put him in direct contact with grieving families. His account adds to public attention on Catarroja’s cemetery after the site was damaged in the catastrophic floods that hit the Valencia area in late 2024. ### Who is Salvador Pons, and why do locals call him “Cacau”? Salvador Pons is the gravedigger at Catarroja’s municipal cemetery, according to Heraldo, and he said he has held the post for three decades. The report said residents know him more readily by “Cacau” than by his given name. The nickname comes from his family line, Pons told Heraldo. (heraldo.es) He said a great-great-grandfather had a field of peanuts — “cacaus” in Valencian usage — and the name passed down through later generations until it became the family’s common identifier in the town. ### How many people does he say he has buried? (heraldo.es) Pons told Heraldo that he has buried around 7,000 people during his years in Catarroja. The figure is his own estimate, given in a profile focused on the scale of the work and the emotional demands attached to it. Thirty years in a single cemetery job means he has handled deaths across generations in one municipality. (heraldo.es) Heraldo’s report presented that number as the clearest measure of how closely his working life has been tied to the town’s deaths and mourning rituals. ### What did he say about the emotional toll of the work? (heraldo.es) Pons said the work does not become easier with repetition. “El corazón no se te hace duro con el tiempo” — “your heart does not harden with time” — was the line highlighted by Heraldo in its headline and report. That strain comes from constant proximity to bereavement, according to his account. (heraldo.es) Pons said gravediggers deal not only with the physical work of burials but also with families at the moment of loss, and he argued that this part of the job is poorly understood by people outside the cemetery. ### What is he complaining about now? Pons told Heraldo that “people do not appreciate this work” and that cemetery workers are “a bit abandoned.” His complaint was directed at the lack of public recognition and at what he described as insufficient support for the people who keep cemeteries operating. (heraldo.es) The call for more resources comes after Catarroja’s cemetery became part of the wider emergency caused by the October 2024 floods in Valencia province. AFP reported in November 2024 that floodwaters in Catarroja reached about 1.70 meters in the cemetery, damaged graves and displaced iron gates weighing 700 kilograms, complicating burials in the aftermath. ### How did the floods change the cemetery’s role? (heraldo.es) In November 2024, Pons was cited by AFP while volunteers worked to clear the cemetery after the flood. He said the destruction was enormous and described the difficulty of restoring dignified burials while the site was still covered in mud and damage. By December 2025, trade publication El Funerario Digital reported that the cemetery had largely recovered normal operations a year after the disaster. (enca.com) That report also cited Pons recalling how floodwaters dragged him and how volunteers and workers helped return the cemetery to service within about 10 days, faster than some other parts of the town recovered. ### What happens next for Pons and the cemetery? As of May 18, 2026, Pons remains the public face of Catarroja’s cemetery in local reporting and continues to press for recognition of cemetery workers’ role. The next phase is less about a single announced event than the continued upkeep of the municipal cemetery and the broader post-flood recovery work still tied to local authorities and staff in Catarroja. (heraldo.es) (elfunerariodigital.com)