Running Out Of Graves?
Filed under: Anglophilia > R.I.P.
The U.K. is having to deal with too many deaths and not enough burial grounds!
So, what are they gonna do about it???
According to The Times, for the first time since the early Victorian era, the country is allowing the "disturbance of human remains in burial grounds" in order to deal with a shortage of graves.
Beginning next year, local authorities across England will be allowed to exhume and then rebury several bodies deeper into the ground.
The goal is to create enough space for more burials on top of the old sites.
In some instances, new inscriptions will be added to the existing headstone and "damaged or insignificant headstones would be removed and replaced with only the new name."
The decision to create new space came as a result of London and other urban areas running short on burial grounds.
Bummer!
[Image via WENN.]
Dump 'em in the ocean.
oh please!
there isn't enough space for the fricking living let alone the dead ones!
I understand having to bury more than one person in the same space (sorta), but to just 'forget' about the original person by not even noting their burial spot?!? Rude, disrespectful and hell on geneologists!
What…. the…. fuck?
What is a bummer? They've always had problems with burials. Like, during the bubonic plague? Pretty much everywhere you step in london someone is buried there.
yukkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
cremate them.
And where I live in southern AZ there isn't a cemetery for MILES. I've lived here 9 years and have yet to see one.
thats sad.
Sounds like the U.K. will be a cemetery soon…
WOW i'm not religious nor do i believe burying people is the best option but i still think that's pretty offensive.
Wonder if they have ever heard of cremation?
this isnt really new news ive heard this so many times
but yeah they shouldnt forget about the other people buried in the spots where there gonna bury new ones
graves are a waste of our lands, and space. it doesn't make since to me. i think everyone should be cremated.
burn em. people are too attached, once you're dead your body serves only the purpose of revitalizing the soil.
stop dying fuckers……….
I think some spirits will be stirred back up and pissed off!
Re: ruffmama –
QFT.
Although what deems a grave insignificant? >>; Brits, go protect your dead!
Interesting to note as well: when I was in Israel I was surprised to see they bury their dead ABOVE ground! Does anyone know why this is? Does it have anything to do with the land conditions(very dry) there,or does it have to do with the Jewish faith? Can anyone answer this one for me? Thanx.
why is everyone suggesting cremetion in such a matter of fact way? not everyone wants to be burnt to dust, i certainly don't and this whole subject really upsets me. i understand the reasons behind moving people further down, but they were people and in whatever small way they have shaped this earth. my mum passed away last year and to think that in 50-100 years time extra that she could be moved further down under the ground is so horrible and not worth thinking about. i think a lot of the iditos who have commented so far need to learn about respect and not be so matter of fact
They should be able to stack coffins as deep as possible- and realistically, everyone should be cremated. It is cleaner, cheaper, faster and recycling!
To store ashes in small wall niches is far cheaper than burying those obscenely huge coffins made out of non-decaying materials like metal or steel, lined with fluffy stuff as if a corpse can feel it. In most of England, pine coffins and no embalming are totally acceptable, so not much would be left, but the markers and what remains there are should be left there. But if you can be cremated, you should do it. Saves ALOT of money for your family. Just speeds up what is supposed to happen. Genealogists can work from records- many old cemeteries don't even have headstones any more and lots of groups go to cemeteries to get the records online before they are lost.
cremation people, cremation
Re: JoulesUK – I am sorry you lost your mother. i have to- but eventually, everyone loses their mother. It's sobering but true.l The reason people suggest cremation is that it is practical. In the USA, people are buried in huge cement vaults under the ground, in indestructable coffins, needlessly embalmed with chemicals and it just a money making industry. We have grassroots cremation societies that do it for just a few hundred dollars. Our funeral industry is nothing like the one in the UK. It costs thousands of dollars to do it "our" way.
people need to consider cremation…there is no room for millions of boxes in the ground with people in them that dont break down….
Most folks choose cremation over burial here actually. I can only remember 2 out of all the funerals I have attended or known about that have had a burial.
wait till The muslims get their sharia laws FULLY integrated…. oh my
OVER POPULATION ………………………..you all
………………………………………………… Cremation is the way to go……………
thats some sick shit
I suggest burying people in the upright (standing) position. It takes far less space… instead of taking up approx 8' headstone to end of casket you'd be taking up 4'. A few European countries have already started doing this because they've started running out of room as well.
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Pogue, members of the Jewish faith in Israel do not bury their dead in caskets, but instead place the body wrapped in a tallit and placed in the grave. Many older Jewish cemeteries in Israel buried their dead in above-ground tombs, about 2.5' high, 7' long and 4' wide and inscribed the person's name in Hebrew on the 'lid' of the tomb. Some have left that practice and gone to the in-ground burial, however, and use the Christian style headstone as a grave marker.
Where I live, there are things called 'columbariums'. They are kind of like a mausoleum, but it's a big tall wall with niches for the ashes. We're all for practicality in our parts.
BTW, one place I visited was the Hollywood Forever cemetary. It has some pretty freaky spots, really super old parts where they look like folks are stacked on end… tombstones so close together you just have to wonder WTF?
thats pretty sick.
perez may i point out that england and the uk are seperate so please secide which one youre talkinh about fuckwit
Just curious if anyone can tell me what you paid for a cremation?
This happens in other places in Europe. My dad comes from an island in the Azores, which happens to be a small island and they exhume old bones all the time…..well not all the time…but is graves have been there for over 200 yrs, what are the chances someone is visiting that grave??
That's not cool. I do think cremation should be encouraged through tax breaks or govt subsidization. If it were free, people might be more likely to choose to do so. However as much as I want to be cremated or possibly composted, I think you should leave the dead alone. I hate it when people dig into pyramids, tombs, or burial mounds as well. Let people be with what they did for their culture at the time. It's us who should change, not those who were there first.
IN REPLY TO Pogue Mahone:
That is done in Louisiana too but its because Louisiana is below sea level.
I don't know why they do it in Isreal.
Also this has been a problem in England before.
I don't think they just ditched head stones like they are talking about this time around tho.
Not to worry. It's not long until the problem is solved with Soylent Green wafers.
What a waste of space! The funeral business preys on the living guilt to "honor" their loved one with $10,000.00 caskets that NO ONE will EVER see again! I'm set up to donate whatever can be used & burn the rest. In a hundred years all the emotions will be forgotten & you're just a footnote to history, if anyone cares.
It is so absurdly selfish to expect burial. Cremate yourself. From ashes to ashes and dust to dust, even the Bible says it's cool. This goes triple for you Catholics, Jews and Muslims who for some reason believe you have some special right to clog up the planet with your dead. Traditions change by virtue of necessity and it's time to get over your burial bullshit.
Cremation is way more environmental.
Re: Pogue Mahone –
www.google.com
WTF?? ok I'm all for cremation, but once you have a number of bodies buried leave them the hell alone. Thats why anyone messing around with the tombs or underwater burial grounds is messed up, and they have no clue what they could be doing.
Build above ground. Duh.
Re: Pogue Mahone – Well, in New Orleans you can ONLY be buried above ground. The water table factors into it and the land is so below sea level that if you bury a body it just floats back up. They learned that the hard way in centuries ago after plague and yellow fever (I know you've seen Interview with a Vampire). So that's why the graveyards in New Orleans are such a tourist attraction. One day, though, there's either going to be really tall towers of dead people or New Orleans is going to run out of space for burial.
THEY DO THIS IN PORTUGAL
CAUSE WE HAVE A VERY SMALL GRAVEYARD
CAUSE WHERE IM FROM ITS ISNT THE RICHEST PART OF PORTUGAL SO WHEN THEY NEED ROOM
THEY DIG UP THE OLD BODIES THAT ARE OLDER THAN 7 YEARS AND BUT THE BONES THAT ARE LEFT IN THESE LITTLE CEMENT COFFINS AND KEEP THEM ON THE SIDE SOMEWHERE AND THEN THEY BURRY THE NEW PERSON IN THAT SPOT! THEY THROW AWAY THE COFFIN THOU CAUSE ITS ALL OLD AND USED AND DIRTY BUT THEY KEEP THOSE PEOPLES BONES IN ANOTHER PART OF THE CEMETERY OR SOMETHING.
KINDA CREEPY LOL I WOULD HATE TO WORK IN A CEMETERY.
"damaged or insignificant headstones would be removed and replaced with only the new name."
WTF???? Insignificant? INSIGNIFICANT? Who the FUCK decides that a headstone, which presumably marks the grave of someone who was someone else's child and possibly a sibling, relative, parent, friend, or even an acquaintance, is INSIGNIFICANT???
NOBODY is insignificant and I'm appalled and sickened by this insensitivity. God, this just makes my blood boil. WTF is becoming of humanity???
Re: Baby Tee –
haha im from the azores too i just left a comment about how they do that it's a small cemetary so they dont have much money to make it bigger so they unburry really old ones my dad said he found out a couple years aho when he was theres uauly the ones they unburry are 7 years or older cuz after that long they arent really visited.
Dear Mancunian Candidate. Since you were sleeping through your Geography class and leaving a nice drool puddle on your desk, here is a tidbit for you: The United Kingdom is a unitary state consisting of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Check out wikipedia sometime. Now go back to your guitar hero.
people should stop burying their loved ones in metal fortresses….a simple wooden casket should be good enough for anyone who wants to be buried rather than cremated….use a wooden marker & touch it up occasionally…monuments to the dead are for the surviving people who cared about them. much like the funeral itself. the graves would still outlive those who knew the person in the first place and would eventually decay; leaving the land to be used again within a few centuries. if decent records were kept it wouldn't be as though the person never existed. we should get our priorities straight here.
That's why I want to be cremated. Burial is a waste of space and just creepy.
Cremate everyone. Thats a simple solution.
Save space. Go vertical.
Re: LisaRose – They dump them in the caves off RT-66.
dig a giant ditch and bury everyone in there. that should save space. personally, i prefer to be dumped into the ocean.
Ever heard of something called "cremation"?
Stack em like pancakes.
Supposedly Japan's going through the same thing. It's no surprise. People need to just burn the dead bodies. There's not a lot of options.
Not everyone believes in cremation, so respect people who believe in burial. Cremation isn't the best thing either it pollutes the air we breathe. All you cremeation advocates why not do like the Zoroastrians do…let vultures take care of the body that way there is no air pollution and no burial space wasted. There is another new method putting the body in a vat of acid and then pouring your body sludge down the drain…they say you're reduced to soap and it breaks down in the environment.
I find the concept of rotting corpses in graves quite vile.Burn the damn things.Not as if they are needed . Ever noticed the dead have the best views in world ,and cannot see them.There is an injustice about that.The living need place to live.The dead are..well dead. Not forgotten to those who care , but still dead…
I always wondered what would happen when we run out of space to bury the dead??? DEATH SUCKS….I don't wanna die…SCARY thought. MY grandma died in my arms it was so surreal. Wouldn't leave her side. Held her for 4 hours until the final breath.
what? i'm sure this isn't a new story…everyone gets burned here unless ur catholic, pretty much.
Re: jessicarae – EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been saying that for yrs!
Re: Pogue Mahone – wikipedia
Horrible.
I think sooner or later we all are going to run out of room, so burying huge boxes of dead guys everywhere isn't that practical. Unless you use Antarctica.
Thats messed up!!