The pigs were owned by villagers at Zhongzhou village, Wuhan, in Hubei province in central China that was flooded after heavy rainfall.
Locals that needed help were evacuated but several farmers refused to leave the pigs, saying the animals were their livelihood and that they would be ruined if drowned. Farmer Lu Peng said: “We tried to put them somewhere safe but they always escaped and jumped in the water and then the other followed. We refused to leave without them.”
The water was waist high for people but that meant death for a pig once they got too tired to swim any more. In the end the rescuers agreed to rescue the pigs first, packing 15 at a time into the boat and travelling to higher ground before eventually rescuing the farmers as well.
Rescuer Lin Chen said: “The problem was keeping them in the boat, for some reason they kept jumping into the water and needed to be lifted back on board each time.”
Post published in: World News