SINGAPORE - The Land Transport Authority (LTA) is looking for the descendants of five deceased buried in Seh Ong Cemetery.

The authority posted a notice in The Straits Times on Wednesday calling for their next-of-kin to register with it by Dec 24.

They can do so by visiting their office on 1 Hampshire Road, or by making a trip down to the LTA site office at Bukit Brown Cemetery, along Kheam Hock Road.

The cemetery, which has been closed off to burials since the early 1970s, is located off Lornie Road and near Bukit Brown. Part of the burial ground is required for the development of a major road between MacRitchie Viaduct and Adam Flyover that will replace Lornie Road on the Outer Ring Road system.

The LTA said it will exhume the claimed Seh Ong graves and cremate them individually on or after Dec 25. The ashes will be placed in an urn and stored in a niche at a Government crematorium and columbarium. Claimants have the option of engaging their own contractor to exhume their graves at their own cost, it added.

Meanwhile, unclaimed graves will be exhumed, cremated and stored by the LTA. They will be scattered at sea if they remain unclaimed three years from the date of exhumation.

The LTA began public exhumation for 3,442 graves at Bukit Brown in December last year. It was also reported last year that of this number, 1,263 graves had been claimed.