The Shanghai Daily reports a duck processor in central China has been dumping duck excrement and dead animals directly into a river, contaminating a drinking water source that later lead to more than 100,000 people getting diarrhea.

Duck farms scattered along the Xiaohuang River in Huangchuan County, Henan Province, were accused of discharging waste in the river, killing fish and polluting the water. The farms belong to Henan Huaying Agricultural Development Co Ltd.??

The local water utility stopped collecting water from the river four years ago as it was too polluted, Shanghai Morning Post reported yesterday.

??However, two reservoirs that were used as new sources of tap water dried up in a drought this year and the county government was forced to resume pumping water from the Xiaohuang in April. Two months later there was a severe outbreak of diarrhea, sickening more than 100,000 villagers.

Three rusted pipes were seen stuck into the muddy river, where bottles and disposable lunch boxes were floating, to collect tap water supplying 280,000 people.