Two citizens scatter the ashes of their relative into the sea in a mass sea burial held in the Dapeng sea area Thursday. Organized by the city's funeral service center, the sea burial was attended by a total of 119 families. Zhang Yu
In the warm sunshine and crisp winter breeze, 119 families carrying the ashes of their deceased loved ones were aboard three ferries that sailed into the Dapeng sea area Thursday.
The ashes, including those of 53 deceased Shenzhen residents who had previously held household registration permits, were scattered in the waters off Dapeng Bay with flower petals.
After 20 minutes’ voyage, the ferry arrived at the burial place. Passengers descended to the deck, where four metal funnels for pouring ashes hung from the sides of the vessel.
As the boat gently rocked in the waves, each family took turns standing beside the funnels to empty their urns and bid farewell to their deceased loved ones.
A woman surnamed Zeng and her husband were aboard to scatter their son’s remains into the sea. Their son, who was only 2 years old, died in a drowning accident last month. “I hope our son can find his final resting place in the sea,” Zeng told Shenzhen Daily.
A citizen named Ge said that they had heard of sea burials when Shenzhen organized its first mass sea burial. “We’ve decided that no matter who died in our family, we’ll have a sea burial because it saves the trouble of visiting the deceased at the cemetery and allows us to come and look at the sea whenever we miss them,” Ge said.
Ge and his wife attended the sea burial to bid their last farewell to their son, who died of sudden myocarditis in Beijing in 2011 at the age of 17.
Shenzhen provides free sea burials for both locals and nonlocals. Since 2018, the city has introduced incentives to encourage the public to choose sea burials. The deceased’s families are paid subsidies if the deceased previously was a permanent resident of the city. A family can receive 3,000 yuan (US$470.7) per sea burial.
For other types of ecological burials, the subsidy is 1,000 yuan per burial.
So far, the remains of 37,848 people have been interred in the Dapeng sea area, saving the city a lot of space and alleviating the citizens’ financial burden.
Shenzhen traditionally performed two sea burials annually, according to the Shenzhen Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau. Sea burials will be carried out on a regular basis from November this year, and applications will be accepted throughout the year, in order to continue to promote land-saving ecological burials.
When a specific number of applications has been received, a mass sea burial will be carried out, the bureau said.