China pulls nearly 6,000 dead pigs from Shanghai river

A sanitation worker collects a dead pig from Shanghai"s main waterway on March 11, 2013.Officials say the number of pig carcasses found in Shanghai’s Huangpu River has risen to nearly 6,000.

In a statement, Shanghai authorities said that 5,916 dead pigs had been removed from the river by Tuesday.

But they said water from the river was safe, with water quality meeting government-set standards.

It is believed that the pigs may have come from Jiaxing in the neighbouring Zhejiang province, although the cause of their deaths is still not clear.

In a statement, the Shanghai municipal government said that the water in Huangpu River, which is a major source of drinking water for Shanghai, was safe. It also said that no diseased pork had been detected in markets.

The government statement said that the number of pigs being salvaged from the river appeared to be decreasing.

Laboratory tests have identified that some of the pigs had porcine circovirus, a common disease that affects pigs but does not affect humans.

Reports suggest the dead pigs may have been dumped from pig farms in Jiaxing, upstream of Shanghai.

 

BBC has the full article

You may also like...