PICTURES: Distraught farmers’ emotional goodbye to flooded pigs

This is the moment two Chinese farmers said tearful goodbyes to thousands of pigs, thinking they were leaving them to drown amid severe flooding.

The animals have been partially submerged in water since Monday when the farm flooded, in Shucheng county in Anhui province, after days of heavy rain.

Many people have already been killed in the deluge which happened after the Yangtze River burst its banks.

The farmers, named locally as Li Zuming and Li Jie, had been told the pigs could not be saved.

It is understood the pair had raised many of the pigs themselves and wanted to say goodbye.

However, the images provoked an emotional reaction when they were widely shared on social media prompting calls for the animals to be rescued.

Now, local media has reported that the Xishang Group, a food and agriculture firm, has come to to the aid of the farmers and saved the creatures.