Nearly 3,000 dead pigs found in Shanghai river

 Shanghai river dead pic,  Shanghai river photos Shanghai authorities have appealed for calm after China’s latest environmental and health scandal flowed into the city in the form of a putrid tide of rotting pigs.

More than 2,800 decomposing pigs have reportedly been pulled from the upper reaches of Shanghai’s Huangpu River – a source of drinking water for some of the mega-city’s 23 million inhabitants.

How so many pigs got there and why they died remains a mystery, although local media reports have suggested the animals may have been dumped in the river by an unscrupulous farmer from the neighbouring province of Zhejiang.

On Monday, authorities announced they had detected traces of porcine circovirus, a disease that affects pigs but which is not believed to infect humans, in the river.

However, authorities insisted there was no risk drinking water supplies would be contaminated and said tests of the Huangpu's waters had found no trace of foot and mouth disease, blue-ear pig disease or swine fever.

The pigs were first discovered on Thursday, five days ago. Graphic photographs of the bloated, floating carcasses circulating online did little to calm residents' nerves.