Body parts on landfill came from lab, say police

Human body parts found at a landfill in Lanzhou on Monday were from a laboratory specimen and not the remains of a grisly murder, according to local police.

The Lanzhou Public Security Bureau said the upper arms and other body tissue discovered at the site were leftovers from the construction of a human teaching specimen by a laboratory connected to the Gansu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Police said the remains were put into a white plastic bag in front of the laboratory door on March 31 and were supposed to be taken to a medical waste facility the next day.

But a cleaner mistook the bag for general waste and put it in a rubbish cart. The bag was dumped at the landfill in Chengguan district, where it was discovered by scrap collectors. Police said a 30cm rusty steel saw blade, two pieces of paper with the college's logo and a card belonging to a college social club were also found in the bag.

'The blade was used to cut the parts from the specimen,' said the bureau's propaganda director, Peng Hailin . 'And we did not find any cooking ingredients as the media reported.'

Under the headline, 'Cooked child's limbs found at a Gansu landfill', the Lanzhou Morning Post had reported that two arms were found in the bag along with other meat, bones, ginger and chilli.