Selangor is considering burying people vertically as it is running out of cemetery space, a report said today.

The radical solution was proposed in the state assembly in central Selangor, where cemeteries are full or approaching capacity, the New Straits Times reported.

Housing and local government committee chairman Mohd Mokhtar Ahmad Dahlan said the state was open to all suggestions and would consider burying people upright if necessary.

He said the state had just 1,031 hectares (2,547 acres) of burial space and now demanded that housing developers set aside one hectare for graves for every 5,000 residents in their projects.

The country's Muslim majority does not accept cremation, unlike members of the minority religious groups of Buddhists, Hindus and Christians. - AFP