LORRIES were yesterday lining up to take animal carcasses from the latest Gwent area to be hit by foot-and-mouth disease.

The outbreak was confirmed at Lower Pant-yr-Esk Farm in Abercarn on Monday. The culling of 76 cattle and 116 sheep there ended on Tuesday, and their carcasses were being taken to a rendering plant in Widnes.

Around 70 ewes were culled at an adjacent farm, with the slaughter of more animals at three other adjacent sites and at another, considered to have had dangerous contact with the infected farm, being carried out yesterday.

Agriculture ministry officials are still investigating the source of the outbreak, the second in Caerphilly county borough. The first was in Nelson.

No new confirmed or suspected cases of foot-and-mouth have been reported in Wales since the Abercarn farm fell victim.

On Monday, a 3km exclusion zone was immediately set up around the infected farm, and Caerphilly council's emergency team was meeting yesterday afternoon to discuss the situation.

Amanda Thomas farms at Pantyscawen Farm in Newbridge, and has sheep and a rare breed of pigs there.

The farm has not been affected by the nearby outbreak but she said: "It is very worrying." Miss Thomas said she was angry she had not been informed directly about the foot-and-mouth case in Abercarn, only hearing about it on Tuesday, a day after it had been confirmed.

"I am really annoyed about the lack of information," she said. "They must have been testing last week, maybe earlier, but we were not informed or warned to keep away from the area."

Dorinda Jones, landlady of the Church Inn in Mynyddislwyn, said business had been slow because of the outbreak.

"It was quiet on Tuesday night," she said. "Everybody is devastated. The farmers it has affected have families and work hard to build their stocks. It is dreadful."

She said trade had suffered at the start of the foot-and-mouth crisis for around four weeks, then had picked up. Now the new case had struck again at the heart of the local community.