Cremator dumps half-burned bodies to save fuel
Fri Dec 7, 12:45 PM ET
HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's worst fuel crunch in years has led a
crematorium to dump half-burnt corpses to try saving on diesel costs,
a Hong Kong newspaper said on Friday.
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Villagers in Hengyang county, in the southern province of Hunan,
discovered the practice when an "unbearable stench" started coming
from the site, and tried to block a road on Wednesday to stop funeral
vehicles from delivering more bodies.
The village sent people to investigate the smell and the South China
Morning Post said they saw "crematorium workers putting half-burnt
human remains and organs in plastic bags and throwing them into a
nearby ditch."
"As the price of diesel rose, we saw more and more bags thrown out
from the crematorium," the paper quoted Xiao Gaoyi, a village
representative and one of the witnesses, as saying.
China was hit by its worst fuel supply crisis in four years from
October to November, as a widening gap between low, state-regulated
domestic prices and market-driven international prices forced Chinese
refiners to cut output.
Fuel in many parts of the country was rationed and there were long
queues at petrol stations.
An increase of nearly 10 percent in the prices of domestic diesel and
gasoline from November 1, the first in almost a year and a half,
failed to lift refining margins back into the black.
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