Mass graves replace elaborate funerals in northern Japan

Mass funerals bring Japan new heartacheSTORY HIGHLIGHTSBuddhist funerals typically are highly ritualizedThe town of Kamaishi lacks the resources to cremate the deadThe bodies must be buried in mass graves to prevent a disease outbreakOfficials say the mass burials are temporary Kamaishi, Japan (CNN) -- Ikuo Fujiwara stops in front of the wreckage of the Buddhist temple, brings his hands together and prays.

The monk bursts into tears, an involuntary act, as he asks heaven what he can do to comfort his destroyed hometown and begin to rebuild his house of worship.

Fujiwara needs heaven to speak to him, for he must preside over Kamaishi's first mass burials in memory. Behind his temple, the sound of heavy machinery digging giant ditches for unmarked coffins echoes through the shattered remains of the 300-year-old building.

"We don't have enough places to cremate the bodies," says Fujiwara. "So temporarily, we're burying the bodies here."

The ditches sit within 50 meters of the Buddhist burial plots, where cremated remains lie underneath grey headstones. This is a sacred practice that every Japanese person expects at death, explains Fujiwara. A Japanese funeral is elaborate, formal, and ritualized in the Buddhist faith.

So the wide ditches and the coffins, which will eventually lie in them side by side, are an unbearable insult in the minds of ordinary Japanese citizens.

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