HONG KONG — Two officials in the Chinese city of Wuhan were sacked and another was under investigation after government staff used a rubbish truck to ship a consignment of pork for human consumption, local authorities said.

Residents in the Yuanlin community of Qingshan district were outraged when the pork they bought from government stores arrived in the vehicle on Wednesday (March 11).

The meat, packed in plastic bags containing 1,000 portions, was tipped onto the ground and then handed out to customers, according to residents who complained about tainted food on Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblogging service.

In one widely shared photo, the bags were shown being dumped from a battered and dirty truck onto a large plastic sheet on the ground. In another, several workers stepped onto the sheet to count the bags.

Food supplies have largely been controlled by the government since Wuhan, the city in central Hubei province at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, was locked down in late January.

Residents remained under quarantine and new cases, which hit nearly 4,000 a day in mid-February, fell to eight on Wednesday.

Mr Luo Rong, deputy head of Qingshan district who was responsible for logistics during the epidemic, was under investigation, the city's discipline commission said on Thursday.

Two senior figures from the subdistrict government in Qingshan were sacked, authorities said on Wednesday.

They said 530 portions of pork were distributed that day, and government workers were sent to homes to apologise to customers and retrieve the tainted meat.

All the 1,000 portions would be destroyed, and consumers would receive the same amount of "safe and clean" meat later, the district government said.

"We failed to meet hygienic requirements of food transport and exerted a bad influence on residents' physical and psychological health. We extend our sincere apologies to the residents," it said. SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST