8,300 dead pigs flowed down Shanghai river this week

March 15, 2013 22:20

Shanghai fished another 809 dead pigs out of its main waterway today, bringing the total carcasses found this week to 8,300 in a scandal that has spotlighted China's troubles with food safety.

The swine effluent discovered flowing down the Huangpu river -- which supplies a fifth of the commercial hub's drinking water -- has added the country's most popular meat to a growing list of food items rocked by scandal.

"As of 3:00 pm today, another 809 floating dead pigs have been fished out," Shanghai authorities said on their Weibo account, a service similar to Twitter.

It gave assurances that authorities had not found any substandard pork products on the market and were closely monitoring water quality.

Shanghai has blamed farmers in neighbouring Zhejiang province for casting pigs thought to have died of disease into the river upstream, although officials from the area have admitted to only a single producer doing so.

Pork accounted for 64 per cent of total meat output last year, and China's increasingly wealthy urban residents consumed 21 kilograms (45 pounds) of the meat per person in 2011.

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