Government and Policy

Cremations held in line with local customs

By ZHANG JIN and YAN JIE (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-24 06:47

YUSHU, Qinghai - Local Tibetan monks and others have defended the option of cremating victims killed in the 7.1 magnitude earthquake on March 14 as a practice conforming to religious and traditional custom.

More than 1,000 victims of the quake that struck Gyegu town of Yushu county have been cremated over the past week, according to reports.

A total of 2,187 residents in the area, the majority of whom are Tibetans, have died from the earthquake as of Friday afternoon, according to the local civil affairs department.

"Cremation is in accordance with (Tibetan) custom," Choyang, 40, a living Buddha with the Pangmer Monastery in the neighboring Zaduo town of Chindu county, told China Daily.

Choyang was in Gyegu to help with quake relief work.

Tibetan monks agreed that cremation is an acceptable option under current circumstances after the disaster.

Xiningbao, a 40-year-old monk, lost three of seven in his family and had them cremated in the past week.

"I don't see any problem with it," said the monk. "There are too many deaths and it's good for the prevention of outbreak of epidemics."

However, some local residents still wished for a sky funeral.

Sonma Chogyal, a Gyegu resident who is now living in a tent in the town's stadium, said she was sorry about her younger brother's cremation.

"Before the quake, we used to hold sky funerals for our dead family members," she said.

But she said she understands why cremations are being done, because there isn't enough time to hold the sky funerals before the bodies begin to decompose.

Officials said they had taken into account religious and traditional customs when organizing funerals in Gyegu.

"It was due to the family's requests to cremate the dead," Gengyang, head of the provincial civil affairs department in Qinghai, told China Daily on Friday.

Gengyang, who himself is a Tibetan, said at a press conference on Thursday that the cremations have strictly followed the Tibetan ethnic and religious customs.

"It is unrealistic to hold sky funerals for so many dead killed in the quake and cremation is the best way," he told Xinhua News Agency.

CHINA DAILY

(China Daily 04/24/2010 page4)