Property and business interruption

27.1, bird flu

Japan: officials confirmed a second outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. Work was under way to cull more than 100,000 birds on the farm where the outbreak was discovered and on the neighbouring property. A 10-kilometre-wide quarantine zone has been declared. Inside the zone, officials checked farms and small holdings, where birds have been reared, to try to find out whether the virus is spreading. The outbreak of H5N1 is the second in Japan in a fortnight. The ministry said in a statement that tests showed the presence of a type of bird flu among chickens at the farm in the city of Takahashi in Okayama Prefecture, where 49 birds out of 12,000 died.