Two Chinese officials in the city of Wuhan were sacked and one more was under investigation after government staff used a rubbish truck to ship a load of pork for human consumption. After seeing the unsanitized way of delivering rations to the still recovering residents of Wuhan, many were outraged.
Residents in the Yuanlin community of Qingshan district were alarmed with the arrival of pork from government stores.
Food supplies have been largely controlled since Wuhan, the city in central Hubei province at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, was locked down in late January.
The meat was packed in plastic bags containing 1,000 portions and tipped onto the ground before those were handed out to customers last Wednesday, Mar. 12.
The investigation indicated that the two government officials were heads of the distribution and logistics and giving the go signal for the delivery.
Luo Rong, deputy head of Qingshan district, who was in charge of logistics during the pandemic was under investigation.
The public had outrage on the use of the truck to deliver food that was to be served to the already suffering population of Wuhan.
Filthy trucks were sending bags of meat and vegetables to a residential complex in the Qingshan District of Wuhan, according to pictures taken by residents on Wednesday. The pictures have sparked indignation as they cascade all over Chinese social media.
The district is still under quarantine and dependent upon the government to provide food supplies. Residents are prohibited to leave their homes to go shopping, thus the need for food supplies to be delivered to their homes.
The district officials confirmed the incident when they released a statement released on Wednesday evening. Netizens posted ugly photos of the dump truck tipping its back end and depositing bagged meat onto a plastic sheet.
Residents complained about tainted food on Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblogging website. The bags were seen on one footage with, several workers stepping onto the large plastic sheet to count the bags.
On one footage, several workers stepped onto the large plastic sheet to count the bags.
The number of daily new cases fell to five in Wuhan on Thursday from almost 4,000 a day in mid-February.
Users assumed that the food itself might be contaminated because of the means of how it was delivered and the unsanitary way it was given to paying customers.
Wuhan is currently on lockdown and the government hopes to deter the need for citizens to go outside of their homes and shop for their food. However, because of this new way of delivery, residents are now more cautious than ever of what they put into their stomachs.
One user commented, "I'm too shocked. Don't talk about dignity, (we're) just trying to survive. Why are people being treated like this?"
With tighter quarantine measures, local supermarkets have also been closed.
The two officials delivered the latest bulk shipment of meat with garbage trucks.
"After investigation, the disciplinary inspection committee found the community using dustbin lorries to dispatch 1,000 portions of meat and 530 of them were already delivered," according to district officials.
