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SINGAPORE: Choa Chu Kang Cemetery has a new burial system which uses concrete walls to replace earth graves and it costs S$11 million to develop.
With this new system, graves will be built using concrete slabs that are lowered into the ground. Concrete slabs were first introduced at Bidadari Cemetery five years ago.
From the end of this month, burials for Muslims will be carried out at Choa Chu Kang Cemetery in neat plots, which are designed to be more presentable.
The new burial system for other major religious groups will begin in different months from August till the end of the year.
More than 12,000 plots have been built and over half are designated for Muslim burials.
Islam requires Muslims to be buried as the bodies must touch the earth and cannot be cremated.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) said after three to seven years, new graves would need to be built.
The concrete walls are two-thirds thinner than the earth walls.
The NEA estimated that the concrete walls allow 15 percent more graves or 240 more plots per hectare at Choa Chu Kang Cemetery, providing enough plots for more than 120 years.
This is coupled with the government policy of allowing burials for 15 years, after which the exhumed remains will be moved to other smaller plots.
The formula used to work out the number of graves took into account the number of deaths, burials and the amount of available land.
Satish Appoo, Director, Environmental Health Department, NEA, said: "With this, we can have some sustainability with the number of burials we can do. Our projections even take us beyond 6.5 million – a figure that has been used for planning purposes."
The authorities said the cost of burying a loved one with the new system remains the same for now.
- CNA/so
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