A disturbing discovery along the banks of Shanghai's Huangpu River on Sunday. Dead pigs—at least 2,800 of them.
That's a big worry for residents here. The Huangpu River is a major source of drinking water for locals.
But they say this isn't the first time dead pigs have floated down the river.
[Shanghai resident]:
"You can see dead pigs here every day and every year, and there are even more now than those in the past few years."
On Monday, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that traces of the pig virus PCV have been found in a water sample. The Global Times cited an environmental official who claimed the river's water is still safe to drink.
PCV is a common disease amongst pigs but is not known to be harmful to humans.
The carcasses are believed to have come from Zhejiang province. Thousands of pigs have died there in January and February, apparently because of cramped conditions.
[Villager, Jiaxin, Zhejiang Province]:
"Our village encouraged farmers to throw the dead pigs into a safe treatment pond. But it's pretty far and not that convenient. So they put dead pigs on a bicycle and they throw them wherever it's convenient for them,"
Photos of the dead pigs are circulating on Chinese internet. One lawyer challenged Shanghai's Party secretary to drink water from the river, in a sign of distrust of claims that the water is safe to drink.
Shanghai authorities say they are trying to track exactly where the pigs came from. They're also investigating what killed the pigs in the first place.
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