Update: Number of dead, rotten pigs retrieved from a China river surpasses 12,000
The number of dead pigs pulled from a river used as a source for drinking water for China's largest city has risen to nearly 6,000. But despite this, officials say the water is safe.
The South China Morning Post reported Wednesday that according to Shanghai authorities, the retrieval of dead pigs from a section of the Huangpu River flowing through the southwestern Songjiang district was "basically" complete and clean water supplies had been restored in the town of Maogang, where the carcasses were first discovered.
This is after health officials determined that some of the dead pigs were infected with a disease known as porcine circovirus, a common pig disease that is not known to be infectious to humans.
The decomposing pigs were found in the section of the Huangpu River about 40 miles north of Shanghai's 23 million residents.
Songjiang's district government said it had adopted a series of measures to tackle the crisis including workers adding no less than 20 parts per million of activated carbon into the affected water and extra chlorine.
Workers from the local tap water plant have been testing water upstream and downstream of the water intake point daily since the crisis unfolded.
Local officials said tap water was safe mainly because there was a lot of water in the affected section of the river, the water intake point was far from where most of the dead pigs were found and a high percentage of the carcasses, while decomposing, were still intact.
Jiaxing local media reported last week that more than 18,000 pigs from one village died from illness in the last two months. The reports have sparked fears that residents dumped all of the diseased animals in the river.
In China, officials said pigs that die from disease are supposed to be either incinerated or buried.
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