River turns red with blood as South Korea culls pigs to curb African swine fever
- South Korea has culled around 380,000 pigs since the first case of the haemorrhagic disease was reported in September
- Heavy rains caused blood to seep into the river, sparking concerns about drinking water
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African swine fever is highly contagious and fatal to swine herds, but does not affect humans. It occurs among pigs and wild boars, transmitted by ticks and direct contact between animals.
Pig cases are nearly always fatal and there is no antidote or vaccine, with the only known way to prevent the disease from spreading being a mass cull of livestock.
A local NGO said that heavy rains last week caused blood from a burial site near the inter-Korean border – where some 47,000 pig carcasses were piled up – to seep into the Imjin River on Sunday, turning some of the stream red.
“It made many people living in the area anxious and worried,” said Lee Seok-woo, who heads the NGO Yeoncheon Imjin River Civic Network.
“What was also hard to endure was the odour. I heard many farmers couldn’t work because of the unbearable smell. This should not have happened.”
Seoul’s environment ministry released a statement on Wednesday saying the blood from pig carcasses flowing into the streams had now been “dealt with properly” using suction pumps and other devices, and the situation did not affect tap water in the region.
“We have built banks and other facilities so that the polluted water does not flow into the downstream region,” the ministry said.
South Koreans rush to eat pork as swine fever threatens entire industry
South Korea reported its first cases of African swine fever on September 17, when five pigs were found dead at a farm in Paju, a city near the inter-Korean border about 170km from Pyongyang.
The confirmed cases in the South came around three months after Pyongyang told the World Organisation for Animal Health that dozens of pigs had died from the disease at a farm near the Chinese border.
