Morales chisels a tombstone at his factory near the Southern Cemetery in Caracas
Laudelino Morales chisels a tombstone at his factory near the Southern Cemetery in Caracas December 8, 2012. A perpetually edgy city, Caracas' murder rate has shot up in recent years to become one of the world's worst. Both Venezuela's official national rate of 39 deaths a year per 100,000 people and an NGO tally of double that make the country an international leader in homicides, vying with gang-plagued nations such as Honduras and El Salvador. Some 100 undertakers' businesses, legal and illegal, have sprung up around Caracas in recent years. Nor is there a lack of demand for tomb-chisellers, flower-sellers, permit-handlers and a plethora of other mini-businesses purveying to death. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins (VENEZUELA - Tags: CIVIL UNREST CRIME LAW POLITICS)