County-level authorities in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have apparently illegally built a crematorium and construction waste dump on grasslands.
China National Radio (CNR) reported on Tuesday that the Civil Affairs Bureau of New Barag Left Banner, Hulun Buir city, Inner Mongolia, built a massive crematorium on 8 hectares of land, including a 4.3-hectare parking lot, on the Hulun Buir Prairie.
The area covered by the crematorium is the same as 11 soccer fields. The city only has 43,000 residents.
However, the bureau outstepped its bounds with the construction, CNR reported.
It was merely authorized to build a temporary building that must be torn down within one year on 0.7 hectares of land, CNR reported. The report added that the bureau must restore the regional ecology according to the order of land department.
The dump for construction waste covered 38 hectares.
The head of the local law enforcement bureau told CNR that the dump did not need authorization because the local government agreed to it.
Apparently contradicting the police statement, the Supreme People's Court issued a document in October 2012 to improve the protection of prairie ecology. According to the document, illegally occupying grassland of 1.3 hectare or more is a crime, thepaper.cn said.
The prairie, which dump and crematorium were built on, suffered severe desertification in 1990s.
Zhang Shuanglin, deputy head of the local district that ordered the construction, said local authorities attach great importance to the case and further investigation is ongoing, CNR reported.
