Japan's agriculture minister in Tokyo yesterday slammed a senior poultry industry executive for failing to report the deaths of tens of thousands of chickens on his farm, where officials have confirmed the country's third outbreak of bird flu.

　　About 67,000 of the 200,000 chickens at the farm in southwestern Japan died in the past week, but Hajimu Asada failed to alert authorities and continued to ship live chickens, meat and eggs to customers. Media reports said officials learned of the outbreak from an anonymous phone call that prompted an investigation.

　　"It is terribly regrettable that the report (of the outbreak) came so late," particularly because Asada is deputy chairman of the Japan Poultry Association, agriculture minister Yoshiyuki Kamei said in comments to public broadcaster NHK.

　　Local media quoted Asada, chairman of Asada Nosan, which runs the farm, as saying it had decided to ship live chickens as much as two months ahead of schedule after noticing the birds were dying en masse.

　　"I received a report from the farm saying it had decided to push up shipments. Deciding that the dead birds would not be accepted (by customers), they probably decided to ship them out earlier than planned," the Asahi newspaper quoted Asada as saying on Saturday.

　　Asada added that he would take responsibility for the decision, the Asahi said.

　　The local government confirmed the outbreak in a statement yesterday after test results showed the birds were infected with an H5 strain of the virus.

　　Results of further testing were expected to show whether the chickens were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain that has killed seven people in Thailand and 15 in Vietnam, a Kyoto prefectural (state) official said on condition of anonymity.

　　Authorities also ordered a cull of the farm's remaining birds to help contain the disease, the statement said.

　　But officials feared bird flu had already spread in southwestern Japan after 25 chickens at a slaughterhouse in neighboring Hyogo prefecture tested positive for the virus in initial tests on Saturday.

　　Five of those came from the infected Kyoto farm, along with 9,000 other birds. The remaining 20 came from different suppliers and are believed to have contracted the illness at the slaughterhouse.

　　(The Associated Press)