Extra troops called in to help with foot-and-mouth crisis
More British army troops are to be deployed to help with the foot-and-mouth crisis.
Britain's Ministry of Agriculture (MAFF) said it had asked the Ministry of Defence to make more soldiers available to help remove the growing number of slaughtered animals on farms.
According to official figures, the carcasses of almost 80,000 animals still need to be destroyed with another 130,000 live animals awaiting slaughter.
A MAFF spokesman said logistics teams would now be sent to five more counties - Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire and Herefordshire - to oversee the mass removal of carcasses through burning, burial or rendering.
MAFF said 30 soldiers would initially be sent to Worcestershire with around 70 more soldiers expected to take up positions throughout the remaining four counties by Friday.
The announcement may be interpreted in some quarters as an instant response to earlier criticism that the British Government was failing to use enough troops.
In particular, it laid itself open to attack when it emerged that just 100 of the 200-plus soldiers previously earmarked to help with the crisis had been deployed.
The MoD said MAFF had decided to employ less than half of the manpower it had requested in Devon and Cumbria, two of the worst-hit areas.
The surplus soldiers were still on standby, it said.
A spokesman for MAFF said reinforcements had been requested in the five new counties because of the high number of infection-risk livestock movements known to have taken place through Welshpool and Northampton markets before the disease was first discovered.
"These areas are perceived to be at greater risk than other parts of the country," he added.
