Word: columbaria
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...city has run out of space even for cremated ashes. By some estimates, around 50,000 families are presently storing their relatives' remains in funeral homes while they wait, perhaps for years, to secure a one-square-foot wall niche in one of the city's public columbaria - buildings designed to house cremation urns...
...Hill columbarium. Though applications could be mailed or faxed in, nearly 1,000 people queued in line to submit their paperwork in person on opening day. After graphic designer Raymond Wong's father passed away in December, Wong applied for a niche at another of the city's public columbaria, but was turned away after spaces filled up. "Hopefully this time I'll find a place for my father so he can finally rest," says Wong, while waiting in line at Diamond Hill with his mother. (See pictures of Hong Kong since it was handed over to China...
...Though the government plans to release 37,000 new niches by 2012, that supply will only meet the demand of a single year's cremations. By 2016, there will be no space in public or private columbaria for the remains of up to half of the people who die each year, according to government estimates. The construction of new columbaria is regularly mooted, but neighborhood resistance scuppers the plans. Residents worry that proximity to such buildings will bring them bad feng shui and lure large crowds during ancestral-worship festivals. "We Chinese call a place for the dead yum chaak...
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