Hong Kong, one of the world's most densely populated areas, is looking to Japan for a solution to a perennial issue — what to do with the dead.
For the city's 7 million residents, the struggle for space doesn't end when they die. Finding a burial spot is difficult, with waiting times of as long as 56 months for a reused niche in a public burial site, according to government figures.
Secretary for Food and Health York Chow was in Japan last month to visit Tokyo-based Nichiryoku Co.'s mechanized columbarium, as facilities used to store urns are known. At the facility in central Yokohama, families swipe a smart card and the ashes of the deceased are lifted mechanically within 60 seconds from an underground vault, with 8,545 tomb spaces, to one of 10 viewing areas.