Article Excerpt:

So you think London, population 8 million, is crowded with the living?

There are many millions more under the soil of a city that has been inhabited for 2,000 years. And London is rapidly running out of places to put them.

Now the city’s largest cemetery is trying [...]]]> Publication: USA Today
Author: Rachel Leamon
Publish Date: October 29, 2009

Article Excerpt:

So you think London, population 8 million, is crowded with the living?

There are many millions more under the soil of a city that has been inhabited for 2,000 years. And London is rapidly running out of places to put them.

Now the city’s largest cemetery is trying to persuade Londoners to share a grave with a stranger.

“A lot of people say, ‘I’m not putting my Dad in a secondhand grave,”‘ said Gary Burks, superintendent and registrar of the City of London Cemetery, final resting place of close to 1 million Londoners. “You have to deal with that mindset.”

The problem is a very British one. Many other European countries regularly reuse old graves after a couple of decades. Britain does not, as a result of Victorian hygiene obsession, piecemeal regulation and national tradition. For many, an Englishman’s tomb, like his home, is his castle.

Read the whole story (or watch the video broadcast) at www.usatoday.com…

Article Excerpt:

… The vast majority of Japanese are cremated.

In a ceremony relatives collect the ashes, picking up pieces of bone with chopsticks, and placing them in a ceramic urn.

The remains are then buried, usually under a family tombstone.

But in the high-rise graveyard, the urns are stored [...]]]> Publisher: BBC News, Tokyo
Author: Roland Buerk
Publish Date: October 13, 2009

Article Excerpt:

… The vast majority of Japanese are cremated.

In a ceremony relatives collect the ashes, picking up pieces of bone with chopsticks, and placing them in a ceramic urn.

The remains are then buried, usually under a family tombstone.

But in the high-rise graveyard, the urns are stored on shelves instead.

One half of the building is a warehouse for the dead, filled from the ground floor to the shadows high above with row upon row of rectangular metal boxes.

“You can put ashes for two people in one box,” said the monk. “So 7,000 people maximum in this space, [when] for a normal graveyard you would get 100 graves in this area [of land].”
A key selling point of the graveyard is that the ashes can be retrieved for loved ones to honour the departed.

Visiting bereaved families swipe a card in a reader attached to a computer to activate a robotic arm in the darkness of the vault…

Read the whole story at news.bbc.co.uk…
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Read a similar story at www.pri.org…

Article Excerpt:

As millions of Chinese pause to honour their ancestors and tidy their graves this weekend at the annual Qingming, or “Tombsweeping” festival, the skyrocketing price of cemetery plots and funeral services has become a focus of national anger.

“Too poor to live, to poor to die” is how one [...]]]> Publication: Telegraph.co.uk
Author: Peter Foster
Date: April 03, 2008

Article Excerpt:

As millions of Chinese pause to honour their ancestors and tidy their graves this weekend at the annual Qingming, or “Tombsweeping” festival, the skyrocketing price of cemetery plots and funeral services has become a focus of national anger.

“Too poor to live, to poor to die” is how one newspaper the northeastern city Harbin headlined a report complaining that cemetery plots were now costing more per square metre than luxury apartments.

The spiralling cost of funerals is doubly sensitive in China where filial piety, including honouring and respecting one’s ancestors, ranks even above love for one’s country among the traditional Confucian hierarchy of virtues.

…Read the Full Story

Article Excerpt:

LONDON – A survey has revealed that most Brits do not wish to be buried in a traditional plot, choosing unusual places such as a favourite holiday destination, a place from their childhood or even their own garden.

Age Concern said being laid to rest in churchyard or garden [...]]]> Publication: Breaking News 24/7
Date: Oct 10, 2009

Article Excerpt:

LONDON – A survey has revealed that most Brits do not wish to be buried in a traditional plot, choosing unusual places such as a favourite holiday destination, a place from their childhood or even their own garden.

Age Concern said being laid to rest in churchyard or garden of remembrance was rejected by 55 percent of 2,068 people, who also fail to tell their loved ones about their choice.

And some of their more bizarre choices of where to be buried included a council tip, the desert, the start or finish of the Le Mans race track or a scrap yard.

…Read the Full Story at blog.taragana.com

Article Excerpt:

One of the hottest real estate offers in Halifax is slightly larger than a closet and six feet below ground. Fairview Lawn Cemetery, home to 121 victims of the Titanic disaster, is offering more than a thousand plots.

The sale begins Saturday, but potential buyers like 76-year-old [...]]]> Publication: CTV News
Author: CTV.ca News Staff
Date: May 14, 2008

Article Excerpt:

One of the hottest real estate offers in Halifax is slightly larger than a closet and six feet below ground. Fairview Lawn Cemetery, home to 121 victims of the Titanic disaster, is offering more than a thousand plots.

The sale begins Saturday, but potential buyers like 76-year-old Steven Metledge have already spent time scouting the best locations.

“When you’re young, you never think about it,” he told CTV Atlantic. “But when you get old, you start to think about the last house you can buy.”

…Read the Full Story

For the 120,000 who die every year in Moscow, finding a burial place has become a challenge.

…Read the Full Story