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INTRO
Protests have erupted from villagers in a small county in the mountains of southwest China's Yunnan Province on Friday, who lost their loved ones in a landslide that killed 46 people.
Dozens of families of the victims voiced anger on Sunday, after realizing authorities' had already cremated all the bodies - without their consent...
Most of whom are of an ethnic minority, which bury their dead.
Now the government, has said sorry.
After enduring shock and tragedy, the villagers who suddenly lost their families in this landslide, didn't even get to say goodbye.
The local civil affairs authorities cremated the bodies of the victims without consent of their families.
According to officials with Zhenxiong County, the cremation was carried out to prevent an epidemic.
A manager with the county's funeral parlor, said the bodies had to be dealt with within 24 hours due to limited facilities.
The unauthorized cremation triggered protests from about 40 family members of landslide victims.
On Sunday night, about 40 family members of victims gathered on the road to the landslide rescue and disaster relief headquarters in Zhenxiong County, blocking dozens of vehicles.
They say they didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to their deceased relatives, because of the unapproved cremation.
The crowd didn't leave, until early Monday morning.
Worse still, villagers here are mostly of the Yi ethnic minority...
And according to Yi tradition, deceased relatives are usually buried - not cremated.
The landslide, which occurred in the Zhenxiong village of Gaopo on Friday, killed 46 villagers and injured two.
And is believed to have been caused by heavy snow and icy rain, along with multiple earthquakes that struck a neighboring county, late last year.
More than 500 villagers have been moved to makeshift tents near the village, in case of a secondary disaster.
Others have gone to stay with relatives and friends elsewhere.
Local officials say a plan to relocate and rebuild the village has been launched.
SOUNDBITE (CHINESE) CHEN XIANGJIN, Zhenxiong County official:
"Now the villagers are staying in tents for emergency. They'll move to makeshift shelters in ten days."
The scheme will relocate 630 residents of the village two kilometers away from where the landslide happened.
Construction will take about six months, depending on funds earmarked by the central government.
But for those who have lost family or loved ones in the disaster, life will never be the same.
