Mass animal burial begins

Each trench will hold thousands of carcasses

The burial of thousands of sheep culled because of foot-and-mouth disease has begun at a site in Cumbria.

The Army has prepared huge burial trenches at the disused Great Orton airfield to help clear the huge backlog of slaughtered animals awaiting disposal.

I'm confident that we can speed things up enormously

Brigadier Alex Birtwistle

The number of cases around the country has reached 634, with 27 cases confirmed on Monday - about half of them in Cumbria.

There are fears that the disease may spread across the fells of the Lake District after the first case there was confirmed at the weekend.

Russia has become the latest country to ban imports of European Union meat, following confirmed cases of the disease in France, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland.

The first lorry load is emptied into the pit

On the first day of operations on Monday, 7,500 carcasses were due to buried.

A further 10,000 dead animals are due to be added each day for the next two days.

The site will eventually hold up to half a million carcasses.

The dead animals arrived at the disused airfield - which will become both a slaughter and burial site - in sealed containers.

The airfield was temporarily closed on Monday morning while disinfectant procedures were carried out in preparation for the first stage of the burial operation.

Maff officials in white overalls watched the burial get under way from a mobile platform at the site.

Meanwhile, contractors used earth-moving equipment to excavate several more trenches.

Massive task

Sheep are being interred but cattle cannot be included because of the risk of BSE.

Brigadier Alex Birtwistle, leading the Army operation, said it was looking for a site to dispose of about 15,000 beef carcasses by burning or rendering.

"We are looking actively at that and trying to establish a site that will be as environmentally friendly as these things can be.

"We are looking at four or five sites and will choose the one which will cause least inconvenience to people."

The Agriculture Minister Nick Brown said resources had been increased to help the "special problem" in Cumbria, the county worst hit by the outbreak.

"The disease control priority is to get the animals dead but clearly it is also important to make sure we remove the animals once they're dead and dispose of them safely," he said.

But Mr Brown defended the government's reaction to the crisis.

"We have already disposed of more animals in this disease outbreak than in the 1967 outbreak.

"There has been an enormous amount of work done already," he said.

The long-delayed "firebreak" cull planned for Cumbria was designed to prevent the disease spreading to the high fells of the Lake District where sheep roam wild.

But farmers have been devastated by the news that the infection has now been confirmed at a Lakeland farm above Coniston Water.

Brigadier Birtwistle said: "The idea of this cull was to keep the disease out of the Lake District and the flocks there... but also importantly to keep it out of the dairy herds to the east of the infection."

But he added that the Army would make a difference to the efforts to tackle the disease.

Crisis in the UK

Total confirmed cases 634

615,428 animals due for slaughter

118,627 cattle, 420,519 sheep, 46,021 pigs, 261 goats

388,038 already slaughtered

227,390 awaiting slaughter

291,470 carcasses destroyed

"I'm confident that we can speed things up enormously."

Meanwhile, the prime minister is facing mounting pressure to decide whether to proceed with a general election on 3 May as has been widely predicted.

The government is also seeking urgent clarification from scientists who last week recommended that all livestock on farms within two miles of outbreaks across Britain should be slaughtered.

It is still not clear whether cattle will be included in those culls, or whether they will be extended beyond the worst hotspots of disease in Cumbria and south-west Scotland.

Preparations are also being made for the slaughter of 40,000 apparently healthy animals on the island of Anglesey, in an effort to limit the spread of infection there.