- BEIJING (Reuters) -- Chinese
authorities have been quietly investigating the mysterious deaths of thousands
of tiny birds said to have fallen from the sky over Communist Party chief
Hu Jintao's birthplace, sources say.
-
- The Yangzi Evening News and the Nanjing Daily said more
than 10,000 bramblings dropped like "bird rain" from the sky
in Taizhou, in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, on Tuesday, considered
a bad omen at the beginning of the new lunar year.
-
- The editors of the newspapers stood by their stories.
-
- The Yangzi Evening News said on Friday authorities had
ruled out bird flu, which is sweeping across Asia, as the cause of death
and buried the dead birds.
-
- A spokesman for the Taizhou city government said the
cause of death of the bramblings was unknown but he suspected poisoning.
-
- "Dead birds have been retrieved from villagers,"
he said. "Farmers have been told not to sell or eat the birds."
-
- The Beijing Times ran a similar story on Thursday, calling
it an "inconceivable scene". It quoted a veterinarian as saying
migratory birds could die from eating or drinking poisoned food or water.
-
- Villagers who ate or came into contact with the dead
birds had been put under surveillance, the Yangzi Evening News said on
its Web site wwww.yangtse.com.
-
- Samples have been sent to a lab for tests.
-
- Bramblings -- small birds that are members of the finch
family with an orange breast and shoulder patch, a white rump and a black
tail -- fly south from China's northeast every winter.
-
- The Communist Party, which is obsessed with stability
and frowns on superstition and rumour-mongering, is looking into the newspaper
reports.
-
- "Such reports are not conducive to stability,"
said a source familiar with the workings of the party's media overlord,
the Publicity Department.
-
- "Beijing is concerned," the source said, adding
that the government had sent investigators to Taizhou.
-
- Some Chinese are abuzz, seeing the incident as a portent
of bad luck. Others were dismissive of birds falling from the sky.
-
- "This is scary. Is it bird flu?" said Wang
Weilan, a 22-year-old restaurant waitress in Beijing from the neighbouring
province of Shanxi.
-
- "I hope nothing bad will happen to President Hu."
-
- For tho usands of years, Chinese emperors, fearful of
losing the mandate of heaven, paid close attention to rumours and reports
of natural phenomena such as mysterious deaths of flocks and livestock
or inauspicious star formations.
-
- China's atheist Communist Party virtually wiped out superstition
in the years after sweeping to power in 1949, but such beliefs have grown
in the wake of economic reforms, amid a spiritual vacuum.
-
- China is battling outbreaks of the deadly bird flu virus
in 13 of its 31 provinces, regions and major cities. About 50,000 poultry
have died from the disease and more than 1.2 million have been culled to
prevent it from spreading.
-
- The disease has ravaged Asia and killed at least 18 people.
-
- Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
-
- http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml
- ?type=topNews&storyID=453358§ion=news
|
