NUMBER OF DEAD PIGS RISES IN CHINESE RIVER

photo: NBC

News of the pig 'mystery' in a China river has now made the rounds in the news outlets. Eyebrows were raised, suspicions were voiced and reassurances made by a concerned Chinese government, which neither likes the negative publicity on an already well known pollution problem, nor does it wish to ignore the dangers of a possible pig epidemic.

Numbers have been somewhat uncertain, most say 900 and counting.

But now a new source seems to raise that number to almost 6,000 from the same, redolent, garbage filled Huangpu river.  If that is true, it might point to a very serious infraction on the part of the offending farmer who dumped the carcasses into the river.

What is more astounding is the way the citizens seem to take in stride this latest development.  A lady queried in the streets affirmed that this is not a new phenomenon.  People see carcasses float by all the time.  And it seems that they have become almost inure, if not resigned to the sad state of affairs of the great city's river.  

The river, even before the pig scare, was already in a woeful state.  Runoff from farming, chemical spills and untreated sewage regularly infect the wide waterway.  

Apparently the Chinese government is trying to ameliorate the pollution and contamination problem it faces countrywide to the tune of almost a trillion dollars in the past decade alone.  But all that seems to have had an invisible effect on the environment, when one looks deep into that mucky, foul looking river. 

The Chinese seems to have hit a saturation point lately. They are bombarded with news of their possible exposure from the air, from their food and now from their water.  All they can do is look away. 

A further research on the incident that occurred just this Saturday has brought to light what seems a veritable trend in the illegal disposal of animal carcasses.  Apparently more than 10,078 died just in January, and 8,325 in February, although sources that reported the facts said that the deaths were due to overcrowding in pig farms, and many of them had already made their way to the waterways, because burning the carcasses is very time consuming.  

And some suspect that the reason for this dumping incident comes after the local authorities have tried to contain what had become a flourishing trade in the sale of pig parts and organs from pigs that were not slaughtered but had died prior to butchering.

Source: NBC 3.12.13