graveyard

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Toronto Is Running Out of Burial Space
Toronto Is Running Out
of Burial Space
longform

Toronto Is Running Out of Burial Space

The Local looks at the complex dynamics at play in the bereavement industry

(Newser) - Residents of Toronto who aim to be buried in their city better be planning ahead. Because as Inori Roy reports in the Local , the city is quickly running out of burial space. Advocates have been raising the alarm for years, and the issue is coming to a head. The city...

'Hundreds' of Dead Seals Block Antarctic Explorer's Grave

Virus has taken a heavy toll on South Georgia's wildlife

(Newser) - Passengers who'd hoped to walk with penguins on a cruise around the Antarctic Peninsula and the island of South Georgia weren't allowed to go ashore, but they witnessed distressing scenes of animals that had been killed by a bird flu outbreak in the region. Passenger Astrid Saunders tells...

Unknown Soldier No More: WWI Gravestone Gets a Name
Unknown Soldier Is
Unknown No More

Unknown Soldier Is Unknown No More

British soldier who died in WWI is identified via DNA as 2nd Lt. Osmund Bartle Wordsworth

(Newser) - For more than a century, the British soldier lay in an anonymous grave, one of so many unidentified victims buried beneath the killing fields of World War I. But now, his headstone finally bears a name: 2nd Lt. Osmund Bartle Wordsworth—a great-great-nephew of English poet William Wordsworth—who was...

Detroit Cemetery Exhuming 20 Bodies in Grave Mix-Up

It's not clear yet how many are buried in the wrong place

(Newser) - Family members were devastated after discovering that their loved ones' remains may have been buried in the wrong place in a Detroit cemetery. Gethsemane Cemetery started exhuming 20 bodies Monday in a process expected to be completed Wednesday, the Detroit News reports. It's not clear how many of those...

Town's Cemetery Collapse an 'Unimaginable Catastrophe'

As many as 200 coffins fell in Camogli, Italy

(Newser) - An "unimaginable catastrophe" has befallen a town near Genoa, Italy, where hundreds of coffins that long rested in a seaside cemetery fell some 160 feet toward the Mediterranean Sea on Monday. CNN reports that as many as 200 coffins were swept up in a landslide in Camogli, and only...

They Were Digging a Grave. Then, the Unexpected

NJ cemetery worker buried to his knees for 25 minutes Tuesday after sides of grave collapsed

(Newser) - A New Jersey cemetery worker spent 25 minutes trapped in a collapsed grave on Tuesday—luckily, with his upper body above the dirt. The 59-year-old went into the 8-foot-deep grave at the Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst to take some measurements ahead of a Wednesday funeral, according to police. "They...

He Was High and Mad. His Crime: Toppling Jewish Headstones

Alzado Harris sentenced to probation for 2017 incident in University City, Missouri

(Newser) - When Alzado Harris went to the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Mo., in February 2017, he was inebriated, high on pot, and peeved at a friend. That's what led to his next act, he confessed to police, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch : knocking over more than 100...

This Man Lived 700 Years Ago
This Man Lived 700 Years Ago
in case you missed it

This Man Lived 700 Years Ago

His name is Context 958, and studying him sheds light on UK's poor in medieval times

(Newser) - Gizmodo calls his face "haunting," but to UK researchers, seeing the mug of the man known as Context 958 is nothing short of astounding. His visage was revealed at the two-week-long Cambridge Science Festival this month, as were details about who he was: in short, a 13th-century...

A Town Where the Dead Outnumber the Living 1,000 to One

Colma, Calif., got all of San Francisco's overflow in the early 20th century

(Newser) - A tiny California town that the New York Times calls "more necropolis than metropolis" isn't far from where the Super Bowl will be played in the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday. But any traffic in Colma (aka "the City of Souls") over the weekend is...

Skeletons Under Railroad Could Tell Us About Plague

London excavation to unearth thousands of bones with possible bubonic clues

(Newser) - They came from every parish of London, and from all walks of life, and ended up in a burial ground called Bedlam. Now scientists hope these centuries-old skeletons can reveal new information about how long-ago Londoners lived—and about the bubonic plague that often killed them. Archaeologists announced yesterday that...

Iraq War Overwhelming World's Largest Graveyard

Rogue gravediggers sneaking bodies into other people's plots: Wall Street Journal

(Newser) - Just how bad is the violence in Iraq? So bad that the world's largest cemetery, a 1,500-acre area that contains 5 million graves, is running out of space, the Wall Street Journal reports. The war has doubled the rate of new arrivals to 200 a day, and some...

Town Buys Livestock to Go Green, Save Dough

Charlotte, Vermont, replaces mowers with goats and sheep

(Newser) - Want to cut back on grass-cutting costs and go green at the same time? Buy a few sheep and goats to chomp on your lawn. That's been the solution in one Vermont town that wanted to save money without letting its cemeteries become overgrown with grass and weeds, NPR...

New Concern: Fracking Under ... Graveyards?

But some families eager to cash in: gas firms

(Newser) - Activists are already furious about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing; now some are adding spiritual concerns to their list of grievances. Energy companies are extracting gas from deep below US cemeteries from Texas to Pennsylvania. The fracking occurs far below ground, with companies citing depths of 7,000 to...

Cemetery Worker Breaks Legs Tumbling Into Grave

Middle Village cemetery was site of surprising fall

(Newser) - Mourners at a funeral in New York were shocked to see a cemetery worker plunge into a grave today and break both his legs, DNAinfo reports. The 49-year-old "was removing the strap from the casket at that time," says a cemetery official who suspected the man only hurt...

Whale Graveyard Puzzles Experts

Paleontologists ponder: Why are the fossils found together?

(Newser) - A newly discovered graveyard of ancient whales in Chile has scientists wondering how on Earth the bus-sized mammals all ended up dying in the same place. "That's the top question," says the director of a nearby museum. Their current location—the middle of a highway under construction...

Meth Bust Turns Up Ripped Off Tombstones

Calif. tomb raiders puzzle cops

(Newser) - Police raiding a suspected meth lab 70 miles east of Los Angeles found the drugs and guns they were expecting, plus a surprise: Two dozen stolen granite tombstones. Police believe the home's residents ripped the tombstones from the ground in several local cemeteries, but they have no idea why....

In Greece, Graves Are Only for Rent

After that you have to watch while they dig up your relatives

(Newser) - If you’re looking forward to resting in peace someday, try not to kick it in Greece. The country is so drastically short on cemetery space that by law the dead may only rent graves, and then for a maximum of three years, reports Alex Mar of Slate , whose grandparents...

Tourists Flock to Penis Cemetery

Isolated border graveyard a growing destination in Iran

(Newser) - It's not exactly the naked and the dead, but an isolated cemetery is becoming a growing thrill for erotica-starved Iranians, who flock to the site to stare, agog, at giant moss-covered stone penises (and vaginas) posing as tombstones at the Khalid Nabi cemetery in northeast Iran. It's unclear why the...

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