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The Chinese character for ‘grave’ is visible on one of two marble gravestones used to build a flower bed in the Chinese city of Suqian, Jiangsu province. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Marble gravestones used to build Chinese city’s residential flower bed

At least two marble gravestones have been used to build a flower bed in the residential area of a city in eastern China, according to Chinese media reports.

A motorist made the discovery when he reversed his car and accidentally struck the stones on the edge of the flower bed in a street in Suqian, Jiangsu province, the Yangtse Evening News reported on Tuesday.

He noticed one side of the marble stones contained etched Chinese characters indicating the date of a person’s birth and death.

A photo published in the report shows the marble featuring the two dates, together with the names of the person’s relatives, plus the Chinese character for “grave”.

The cement on the edge of the flower bed still shows the imprint of the Chinese writing on the gravestones. Photo: SCMP Pictures

“On one hand, it’s creepy that construction workers used gravestones to make flower beds,” a resident was quoted as saying. “On the other hand, this is disrespectful to the person that this gravestone belonged to.”

The gravestones were removed later on Tuesday, but the imprint of the writing that was on the gravestones could still be seen in the dry cement where the marble was fixed, the report said.

It was unclear from the article whether more than two gravestones were used to build the flower bed.

The newspaper said that in the past, elderly residents often sat relaxing together on the smooth, cool marble stones beside the flower bed; now they preferred to take chairs from their homes to sit on.

The property management company responsible for the flower beds said the officials in charge of buying marble had bought secondhand materials, which led to former gravestones being used, the report said.

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