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Dead pigs in river: Netizens criticized the Chinese regime after around 3,000 dead pigs were found in a river in Shanghai.
A photo taken through the window on a boat shows dead pigs collected by sanitation workers from Shanghai's main waterway on March 11, 2013. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images)
There was public outrage in China after around 3,000 dead pigs were discovered in one of Shanghai’s main waterways. In recent weeks, there have been several high-profile water and air pollution incidents that have triggered widespread condemnation.
The South China Morning Post reported that local officials have found a total of 3,323 dead pigs in the Huangpu river.
“Related government departments should seriously investigate this and get to the bottom of it,” blogger Ting Tao said, according to Reuters. “The government should really pay attention to people’s lives and take no time to solve food safety issues.”
Images of workers pulling the pig carcasses out of the river spread rapidly across social media sites including Sina Weibo, with many bloggers blasting local officials for allowing the problem to get this bad. The river is a source of drinking water for many of Shanghai’s residents.
“We have never, ever encountered so many dead pigs,” one worker, wearing a mask, told the The Telegraph.
He said that it took around 10 minutes to remove one of the animal carcasses from the water.
“We had dead pigs here last year too,” 66-year-old Dong Aifang, a local resident, told the newspaper. “We seem to have dead pigs all the time. It is non-stop.”
Following the incident, local officials stressed that the water was still drinkable, which also triggered outrage.
“Well, since there supposedly is no problem in drinking this water, please forward this message, if you agree, to ask Shanghai’s party secretary, mayor and water authority leaders if they will be the first ones to drink this meat soup?” attorney Gan Yuanchun said via his microblog, according to the BBC.
There have been increasing concerns in China of fertilizer runoffs, chemical spills, and untreated sewage.
Late last month, investigative journalist Deng Fei published the findings of a online survey that asked Chinese netizens if their local water quality was bad. By Feb. 17, more than 2.9 million netizens confirmed that it was.
And in early March, it was reported that local officials in the town of Changshou, which translates literally to “long life,” have ignored complaints that more and more young people have been dying of cancer in the town. Approximately 20,000 residents refuse to drink the town’s tap water after illegal gold mining started up nearby in 1995.
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