Pig carcasses in river result of weather and illnesses, not epidemic: officials

The large number of pig carcasses dumped in rivers in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, was due to a lack of proper disposal facilities for animals that had died on farms from illnesses or the weather, not an outbreak of disease, pig collectors and villagers say.

Jiaxing, about 100 kilometres upstream from Shanghai, is the suspected source of the nearly 6,000 dead pigs retrieved recently from the Huangpu River, which flows through the heart of the country's largest city.

A government crackdown last year on an underground market for dead pigs that were butchered for illegal pork may also have contributed to the rise in dumping, farmers from Jiaxing's Yongfeng village said. Pig sales are the biggest contributor to villagers' incomes.

Gu Jinlin , who collects dead pigs from the village's farms, said the number of animals that had died had risen at the start of the year, but the village lacked the means to dispose of all the carcasses properly.

An employee of the village committee, Gu said he collected 40 to 50 dead pigs a day and carted them to "non-hazardous treatment pits" - 100-cubic-metre holes, five metres deep, with concrete walls.

He said "non-hazardous treatment" meant throwing the carcasses into the pits and covering them with lids. He said there were five pits in the village, and the village committee was looking for land to build another one. Zhejiang's agriculture department had previously said that most of the dumped pigs had frozen to death.

Gu and another villager who declined to be named said some dead pigs used to be sold to illegal dealers but a government crackdown last year had slashed the number of such transactions.