It is remains unknown who dumped the carcasses into the HuangpuRiver or what the cause of their death may have been. Onepossibility is that the pigs were discarded into the waters by somefarmer from the neighboring province of Zhejiang.
Locals have complained of the terrible smell from the river andare highly concerned with the quality of drinking water, butofficials said no health risks have been registered. According toauthorities, tests of the Huangpu's waters found no traces offoot-and-mouth disease, blue-ear pig disease or swine fever.
However, the cleanup operation needs to be done quickly to avoidcontaminating of the drinking water supply.
"We have to act quickly to remove them all for fear ofcausing water pollution," Xu Rong, the environmental chief inShanghai's Songjiang district said.
"So far, water quality has not been affected but we have toremove the pigs as quickly as possible and can't let their bodiesrot in the water."
In the meantime the operation still continues in theHengliaojing Creek, some 64km (40 miles) from central Shanghai.
The pigs were first discovered on Thursday and have beenrecovered en masse since then. This is not the first time the riverhas suffered such an invasion, locals asserted.
"We had dead pigs here last year too," complained66-year-old Dong Aifang, who lives along the river, was quoted byThe Telegraph."We seem to have dead pigs all the time. It isnon-stop.”
