Anger is mounting in Shanghai where 14,000 dead pigs have been floating down rivers but residents have been told there is nothing to worry about.
The number of carcasses in a river system that supplies drinking water to the city's 23 million people has been increasing for nearly two weeks.
But officials have not explained where the pigs came from, how they died or why they suddenly showed up in the river.
They have said the drinking water is safe, while authorities have censored microblog posts suggesting that the public organise peaceful protests.
The official response reminds many of the government silence that surrounded previous health concerns, from the SARS epidemic to bird flu to contaminated milk.
"They are only giving the runaround," said Huang Beibei, a Shanghai microblogger whose revolting photographs of the pigs first prompted local media coverage and government attention. "'Who believes what they are saying?"
"Those pigs must have come from somewhere," author Li Mingsheng said. "That's a basic question, but the government still has not told us that."
Authorities have retrieved at least 13,996 dead pigs as of Wednesday, and have released daily bulletins saying drinking water remains within national standards.
Officials so far have punished only the eight small-time hog farmers whose pigs could be traced through ear marks. The farmers in the Zhejiang town of Jiaxing, where hog farming is a major industry, were each slapped with a fine under 3,000 yuan (£319).
The central government in Beijing, which has been enmeshed in a leadership transition, dispatched a chief Agriculture Ministry veterinarian, but Yu Kangzhen's conclusion was merely that there had been no major outbreak of swine disease to blame for the dumping.
Villagers have told local media that pig dumping spiked in the wake of a police crackdown on the illicit trade in pork products harvested from dead, diseased pigs.
With no black-market traders to collect their dead pigs, farmers are simply dumping them in rivers, they say.
Other observers have suggested that farmers are feeding pigs small amounts of arsenic to make their skins look shinier, thus increasing their mortality rate. Government officials have not addressed either theory.
"As to the cause of death and the risks, the government has been evasive and vague. The explanations are bordering on being ridiculous," columnist Liu Shengjun wrote on his microblog. "It reminds me of SARS, and I hope history will not repeat itself."
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