The first mass sea burial in Liaoning Province of 2008 was held on Saturday, Web site nen.com.cn reported.

Residents took their relatives' ashes to Dalian, a coastal city in northeastern China's Liaoning Province, and threw them into the sea.

The funeral and interment administration in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, has been pushing sea burials for ten years. In the first few years, residents did not widely accept the method, an employee at the municipal funeral administration said.

As conceptions surrounding death and the environment have changed, more and more people recognize sea burial as an environmentally-friendly way of burying the dead.

In 2006, Shenyang's funeral administration held five mass sea burials. The number increased to 11 in 2007.

Shenyang will hold a dozen sea burials this year. Residents who now wish to bury their loved ones in this manner must wait for a few months, because all the programs before July have been booked solid.

(CRI March 25, 2008)