Anxious to attend a loved one's far-away funeral but the distance is
too great? Rest easy. Now you can attend - virtually - via the Internet.
A Brazil-based Internet site starting next month plans to transmit burials from graveyards across the Americas and in parts of Europe to bereaved absentees via the net, the site's founder said today.
"We'll have cameras installed in the cemeteries that can film any moment of the event the family requests", said Mr Pepe Alstut, the brains behind the site, dubbed Perpetual Life.
Mr Alstut said the site has already received the backing of 50 out of 200 private cemeteries in Brazil and others, from Mexico to Argentina to Spain, to permit filming. He is negotiating with cemeteries in the US and Italy.
Mr Alstut, who says his site is the first of its kind in the world, plans to offer an all-round funeral service including the ability to buy and deliver flowers to funerals and send condolence cards online. The cost of the service has not yet been determined.
It may all seem like a tall order, but not for Argentina-born Alstut, who owns a 14-story cemetery in Brazil's port city of Santos that appears in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's tallest vertical burial ground.
"The idea is to perpetuate the lives of people. After all, the only thing that truly lives on for eternity is the cemetery", he said.
In a bid to keep the dead's memory alive, the site will also rent out online spaces where families can hang photographs and keep videos of births, birthdays and funerals.
Family trees will also allow users to explore their origins and go in search of long-lost relatives, Mr Alstut said.
Reuters