LONDON — The army buried sheep carcasses in a huge pit Monday, starting a mass burial to dispose of up to a half-million animals slaughtered in Britain's expanding campaign to control foot and mouth disease.
The highly contagious livestock disease has been confirmed at more than 600 sites in Britain since mid-February, and the outbreak has since arisen in France and the Netherlands.
The European Union was expected to extend its ban on French livestock exports — a restriction it had been planning to ease until France confirmed its second case of the disease on Friday. EU veterinary experts meet Tuesday to discuss the ban.
French authorities imposed their own tighter restrictions Friday, banning all exports of fresh meat, unpasteurized milk products and untreated hides and skins in addition to the EU's livestock ban.
In the British town of Cumbria, contractors supervised by the army worked through the night at a former air base, digging a trench some 100 yards long, five yards wide and four yards deep. Some 1,200 sheep carcasses were at the site awaiting burial.
Workmen dumped the first truckload of several hundred carcasses into the pit Monday afternoon.
Britain's agriculture secretary, Nick Brown, said more veterinarians were needed to help identify cases and quickly get infected animals to slaughter, as Britain expands its cull to farms neighboring danger areas.
"We believe that more veterinary resources are needed, indeed by making an appeal worldwide," he said. Finland said Monday it would send two vets to Britain and might send more later.
Russia on Monday announced a ban on imports of meat and diary products from the European Union and the Baltics to prevent the spread of the virus. China also barred imports of animals and animal products from the Netherlands and Ireland, where the disease has also been found.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland's agriculture minister, Brid Rodgers, said Monday that a number of suspect sheep purchased at a market in Cumbria had been tracked down in the neighboring Republic of Ireland.
Sheep from Cumbria are suspected of causing Northern Ireland's sole infection discovered so far, and a case found last week across the border in Ireland's County Louth.
Rodgers complained that the EU had halted all livestock shipments from Northern Ireland, while only County Louth was restricted in the Republic.
"It is clearly indefensible that we are still caught up in EU-imposed export restrictions when every outbreak in other member states has been treated as a regional phenomenon," Rodgers told the Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast.