Qingdao cemetery put under investigation for illegal expansion

Authorities in Qingdao, Shandong province, have set up a joint investigation team to probe an illegal expansion of a public cemetery.

The move comes following a report from China National Radio, which said that the Taipingling cemetery in the city's Chengyang district has been expanded beyond its approved area.

The local civil affairs department approved the nearly 6-hectare cemetery in 1996. Satellite remote sensing shows, however, that the cemetery's operator has dug into mountains and cleared forests in protected spaces of the Laoshan scenic area to build more graves for years.