Deadly Chance To Sleep With The Fishes

MEETING A WATERY GRAVE


Buried 40ft under

Divers in California could soon find themselves swimming around an underwater graveyard.

The planned complex off the Miami coast would serve as a burial ground for up to 21,000 people.


It is meant to invoke the aura of the mythical lost underwater city of Atlantis.

After Life Services, the firm behind the Atlantis Memorial Reefs, will charge up to $1m (£544,000) for a custom-made sculpture.

Prices will start from $2,500 (£1,360) to mix ashes into a concrete pillar.

President Gary Levine said: "We're creating life from death."

He claimed the plot would be beneficial to the marine environment as in its other role as an artificial barrier reef.

Mr Levine said it would lessen the environmental stresses placed on the natural structures.

Atlantis - which will be about three miles off the residential island Key Biscane and 40ft deep - is being touted as a new environmental paradise for divers.

The firm, which has received preliminary local authority clearance for the idea, hopes to eventually build similar sites in Australia, Polynesia and Greece.