Singapore digs up graves to build new motorways, including Bukit Brown cemetery where early Chinese immigrants rest
- Much of Singapore is built on old graveyards, including Orchard Road, the city’s main shopping belt
- In China, authorities said in 2014 they were targeting a cremation rate of close to 100 per cent by the end of 2020
When Singapore’s government said it would exhume about 4,000 graves in the defunct Bukit Brown cemetery for an eight-lane highway, an unusually vocal campaign grew quickly to save one of the last remaining artefacts of the past in the modern city.
The cemetery, a rare patch of jungle surrounded by manicured gardens and high rises, has about 100,000 graves, including hundreds of early Chinese immigrants. It is also considered an important relic of the Japanese occupation and the second world war.
Although the cemetery closed for burials nearly 50 years ago, descendants still visit their ancestors’ graves. But that ritual will soon end, as Bukit Brown is scheduled to be cleared for housing by 2030.
“This is a living museum,” said Darren Koh, a volunteer with advocacy group All Things Bukit Brown, which has offered guided walks in the cemetery since 2011, when the exhumations were announced.
“We lost a lot of history and heritage in the other cemeteries that were cleared, so we were galvanised into action to save Bukit Brown,” he said, fighting to be heard above the roar of traffic and construction on the new highway.
With some 5.6 million people in an area three-fifths the size of New York City – and with the population estimated to grow to 6.9 million by 2030 – Singapore is running out of space.
