A MASSIVE slaughter programme on 19 farms began on Wednesday following confirmation of two new cases of foot-and-mouth at East Cowton, near Northallerton.

Maff confirmed on Tuesday that both Temple farm and Scorton Road farm had succumbed to the virus. At Temple farm, 275 sheep, 400 lambs and 50 cattle were culled and 135 cattle, 78 sheep and 40 lambs were slaughtered at the Scorton Road outbreak.

Eleven farms adjoining Scorton Road were judged to be dangerous by Maff experts, meaning more than 1,000 cattle, 543 sheep, 230 lambs and 832 pigs will have to be destroyed. A further 636 cattle and 541 sheep will be slaughtered at six direct contact sites next to Temple farm.

A spokesman for Maff yesterday confirmed that the slaughter at the farms adjoining both sites was under way, but may not be completed within the government's 48-hour guidelines. "More than 50 pc of the livestock on the dangerous contact sites have been killed," she said. "If we don't hit the 48-hour target, we will be very close."

One of the farms culled was Stripe House, where Mr Bert Reed and his son Malcolm had a 40-strong, home-bred dairy herd with followers. Mr Reed's wife Daisy told the D&S Times how the family was coping. "We have worked with cows all our lives," she said. "We don't know what to do now.

"Everything is so quiet and dead. When you wake up and there is just no sounds of life at all, it hits you hard."

She described the scene on Wednesday when the slaughtermen came for their stock. "It is such an awful, distressing feeling. The people just come in and take your animals. There is no mercy," she said.

"My son stuck in and helped them. He loaded all our slaughtered animals with our forklift truck into the containers to be taken away. My husband wouldn't leave either. I told him to come inside, but he felt he had to be there right to the end.

"I had watched the fires burning all around us and thought, how terrible, but when it comes to you, it is harder still. Your life is just turned upside down in 24 hours."

At nearby Cockleberry House, Mr Peter Leggott is keeping his fingers crossed as he watches his neighbours' herds being destroyed on dangerous contact sites. Maff vets were due to visit his farm yesterday. "Some days it gets to you as you wonder if you're next," he said. "But you just get past it, otherwise you would go and get a gun and shoot yourself. You have got to keep an optimistic view and hope it won't come."

Mr Leggott is the fourth generation of his family to farm the East Cowton area and has cousins working six other farms close by, who are also being threatened by the virus. "We are all bordering infected areas now, so if it spreads any further, we will all get hit. The next ten days will decide for us."

l Another case of the disease was reported at Tunstall near Richmond bringing the number of cases in the Wensleydale and Richmond area to 123. Further reports on the crisis on page 12