A community has expressed its outrage after blood from hundreds of slaughtered infected sheep flowed onto a busy road in Britain.
A driver noticed the contaminated water washing onto the B4080 Bredon to Tewkesbury road in Gloucestershire after recent torrential downpours and contacted police.
Officers discovered the blood was flowing from the carcasses of hundreds of culled sheep at Mitton Lodge Farm in Bredon Road, Tewkesbury.
They alerted the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), which closed the road until Monday to disinfect it with the help of the army.
MAFF officials stressed the move was precautionary and claimed the risk of spreading the highly infectious disease that way was minimal.
But farm owner Mr Stewart Pearman said the community was up in arms.
He had 2,500 sheep slaughtered at Mitton Lodge and nearby Gellesters Farm after an outbreak was confirmed earlier this week.
Mr Pearman said: "I am not happy about the way MAFF have handled this. I have got to ask a lot of questions about how this happened.
A MAFF spokesman said: "Foot-and-mouth is passed from live contact. The likelihood of catching it from a dead animal is significantly reduced. I do not know about the chances of catching it from blood."
A Gloucestershire Police spokesman said: "The road was closed to allow the area to be disinfected and will remain closed until the carcasses can be moved further into the field.
"This will be carried out by MAFF and the army and is purely a precautionary measure."
PA