Shanghai river pig toll passes 13,000

THE number of dead pigs found in a river running through Shanghai, China’s commercial hub, had reached more than 13,000, state media said yesterday, as mystery deepened over the pigs’ precise origin.

Nearly 9,500 pigs had been pulled out of the Huangpu river, which supplies almost a quarter of Shanghai’s drinking water, since the infestation began earlier this month, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Shanghai has blamed farmers in neighbouring Zhejiang province for dumping pigs that died of disease in the river.

The official Xinhua news agency said another 3,601 dead pigs had been recovered.

The Zhejiang government has said the area is not the sole source of the carcasses, saying it had found only one producer that could be responsible.

Shanghai said it had checked farms in its district of Songjiang, where the pigs were first detected, but had found they were not to blame, the Shanghai Daily reported.

The scandal has spotlit China’s troubles with food safety, adding the country’s most popular meat to a growing list of food items hit by controversy.

Samples of the dead pigs have tested positive for porcine circovirus, a common disease that does not affect humans.

Bad habits and lack of supervision . . . have led to this situation