Families of more than 20 deceased people have been given a month to claim their ashes from a Porirua cemetery before they're interred.
TVNZ1's Seven Sharp reports Porirua City Council's Whenua Tapu Cemetery has 23 sets of ashes of people it is trying to find descendants of.
Some of the sets of ashes have been separated from their loved ones for more than three decades. The ashes are stored on a shelf in a room behind the cemetery's public chapel.
Sexton John King, who manages the cemetery, said the names of the 23 deceased people concerned, and the dates they died, are known.
"But unfortunately the next of kin information for the majority of them just is no longer up to date, and the trail has gone cold," Mr King said.
He said there are reasons relatives don't go and pick up ashes.
"In some cases it's because the families have forgotten. In other cases the family have asked us to hold onto the ashes until a partner has passed on."
He added: "It's nice to actually find family that have lost track of their loved one. It's really nice to have that finality for the family."
Mr King wants families to contact the council, but he has given it a deadline of a month.
He said the council is "looking at doing a final interment" of the ashes that are not claimed, in the cemetery's memorial garden area.
Tracing the loved ones of the 23 people is "a difficult challenge", Mr King said, but his goal is to ensure the shelf the ashes are now stored on, is empty.
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