GOVERNMENT officials were fighting a desperate battle last night to dispose of thousands of animals killed because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.

As another case was confirmed in County Durham yesterday, the Ministry of Agriculture (Maff) admitted one village had been forced to live with rotting carcasses for nearly a week.

Delays in constructing funeral pyres and piles of decomposing animals were too much for some people living in the North Yorkshire village of Danby Wiske.

Several moved out at the weekend, vowing not to return until the epidemic was under control.

In Teesside, one farmer has pledged to fight another mass burial taking place only 100 yards from his grazing land.

Jeff Horn is prepared to fight the move through the courts, concerned that the mass grave is a threat to his healthy, 460-strong herd of breeding cows.

A hundred tons of slaughtered sheep and pigs have so far been buried in a commercial waste tip less than two miles from the community of Port Clarence, near Billingham.

The landfill, run by Warrington company Zero Waste, is across a narrow access road from a field holding 28 of Mr Horne's Limousin heifers - all now carrying calves - and an Aberdeen Angus bull.

Mr Horn confirmed last night not only has he complained to the National Farmers' Union, but the NFU's legal department is taking up the matter. He has also instructed his own solicitors to take action.

Zero Waste and Maff insist the carcasses in the dump were those of healthy animals, killed as part of the Government's firebreak policy. Lorries carrying the carcasses started arriving last Friday with the last loads of the current batch, from Wensleydale, tipped yesterday. Mr Horn said: "I am gutted. We have done everything possible to keep everywhere clean and put down disinfectant when this happens."

A spokeswoman for Maff said burials posed no danger to local farmers or residents.

The row pointed to a fresh headache for ministry officials desperately looking for sites needed for thousands of dead animals.

Residents and councillors have already bitterly complained about burials at Chapman's Well landfill site, only 500 yards from homes in Quaking Houses, near Stanley, County Durham.

Last night, one official admitted: "We've got to bury them somewhere."

Scores of carcasses have been exhumed from a pit at Low Houselop Farm, in Tow Law, County Durham, because they had been buried near a natural spring.

The Government was still agonising last night over whether to launch a vaccination programme to help defeat foot-and-mouth.

Prime Minister Tony Blair was said to be receptive to the idea after meeting the director of the Soil Association, a charity promoting organic farming, and others.

But Agriculture Minister Nick Brown spoke to farmers in Cumbria who told him firmly to dismiss the notion.

A decision on whether to vaccinate thousands of animals as a "firebreak" against the spread of foot-and-mouth disease had been expected yesterday.

But a Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food spokesman said the decision would only be made after more consultation, adding: "It won't be taken lightly."

The number of confirmed cases stood at 942 last night, including one new case at Low Lands Farm, Cockfield, County Durham, but there were some signs the outbreak could be tailing off.

A fresh analysis by scientists at Imperial College, London, is expected to offer a revised - and lower - forecast of the number of cases anticipated by June.

Earlier this month, the Veterinary Laboratories Agency predicted there could be 4,400 cases by then.

Meanwhile, Mark Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh, another scientist advising the Government, said it appeared that the rate at which the disease was spreading could be falling. He said it could be a blip, but the so-called case reproduction rate was dropping, indicating the epidemic was on the wane.

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