Government to promote burial at sea

The Beijing civil affairs bureau is urging people to think about having their deceased loved ones buried at sea, instead of using traditional forms of burial in a bid to ease pressure on cemeteries.

The bureau said Thursday that 481 families in the capital chose burials at sea in 2009 as a fitting way to say goodbye to their relatives. That was more than double the number who did so in 2008.

Wang Qi, director of the funeral department of the bureau, said the rise in the number of sea burials was in part because of the city's policy of offering them for free. The initiative was introduced in 2008.