China cremator dumps half-burnt bodies to save fuel

China's worst fuel crunch in years has led a crematorium to dump half-burnt corpses trying to save on diesel costs.

Villagers in Hengyang county, in the southern province of Hunan, discovered the practice when an 'unbearable stench' started coming from the site, and tried to block a road to stop funeral vehicles from delivering more bodies.

The village sent people to investigate the smell and they saw crematorium workers putting half-burnt human remains and organs in plastic bags and throwing them into a nearby ditch. As the price of diesel rose, we saw more and more bags thrown out from the crematorium.

China was hit by its worst fuel supply crisis in four years from October to November, as a widening gap between low, state-regulated domestic prices and market-driven international prices forced Chinese refiners to cut output.

Fuel in many parts of the country was rationed and there were long queues at petrol stations. An increase of nearly 10 per cent in the prices of domestic diesel and gasoline from Nov 1, the first in almost a year and a half, failed to lift refining margins back into the black.