Nearly 6000 dead pigs collected from Huangpu River

Shanghai authorities announced Tuesday that the number of dead pigs collected from Shanghai's Huangpu River has increased to 5,916. Workers have been busy collecting the corpses of floating pigs since Friday, and municipal authorities have said the corpses will be disposed of safely. A local water supply company said the city's water quality has not been affected and is safe for human consumption, but they have taken emergency measures.

Qian Huizhong, Deputy Director of Xiaokunshan Water Plant, Shanghai, said, "If the water is contaminated, we will put more the disinfectants and activated carbon to purify the water."

Tags pinned to the ears of the pigs for tracing purposes indicate that they may have come from the upper reaches of the Huangpu River in Jiaxing City, east China's Zhejiang Province. The tags, however, only indicate the animals' birthplace. Officials said Tuesday that no mass swine epidemic had broken out in Jiaxing. Laboratory tests found porcine circovirus, a virus that can spread among pigs but not to human beings in one water sample taken from the Huangpu River. All other tests showed no signs of irregular contaminants or disease. The river is a major source of drinking water for Shanghai, an eastern metropolis of 23 million people.