Nearly 3K Dead Pigs Pulled From River in China

2,813 carcasses have been retrieved
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 11, 2013 8:23 AM CDT
Nearly 3K Dead Pigs Pulled From China River
A dead pig floats on the river Monday, March 11, 2013 on the outskirts of Shanghai, China.   (AP Photo)

What sounded bad yesterday sounds a whole lot worse today. Chinese officials have fished hundreds more dead pigs out of a Shanghai river, with the number of adult and piglet carcasses retrieved surging from about 900 to 2,813 as of today. The government says the water hasn't been contaminated, but the other details it's releasing aren't doing much to assuage the public: Though the city's Agriculture Committee says there's still no word on what killed the pigs, it did detect a sometimes-fatal pig disease in at least one carcass.

Still, it says there are no indications it was part of any major epidemic. As for where the pigs came from, the city says initial investigations point to Jiaxing city in Zhejiang province as the source. As the AP explains, pigs felled by disease are supposed to be incinerated or buried, and Zhejiang police say they've bolstered their efforts to crack down on gangs that buy disease-ravaged pigs and process them for illegal profits. And as a villager explains, "Ever since the police have stepped up efforts, no one has come here to buy dead pigs, and the problem of pig dumping is worse than ever this year." A government worker said his village had more than 18,000 dead pigs in the first two months of the year. "We have limited land. We do not have that much land for burial," he explains. (More dead pigs stories.)

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