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AKARTA: South Jakarta will likely face a shortage of cemeteries in the near future due to the high mortality rate in the municipality.

South Jakarta Cemetery Sub-agency head Eddy Supriyatna said that the municipality needed around 2.25 hectares of cemetery space each year.

“But in 2011, we could only acquire around 5,500 square meters of land,” he said as quoted by beritajakarta.com.

Eddy said that the mortality rate in South Jakarta was about 6,500 people per year.

To deal with the shortage, the sub-agency applied the overlap burial system in which bodies were buried in the same grave as another family member or other graves upon approval of the family, he said.

“The space between the new body and the old one will be about half a meter. And it is still considered safe based on the medical perspective. The administration fee for this system is also cheaper,” Eddy said.

The system, he said, could accommodate 20 percent of the total demand for burial space in the municipality.