The man who led the foot-and-mouth culling operation for the Army has told an inquiry how the epidemic was out of control before he got involved.

Brigadier Alex Birtwistle also told the Cumbria foot-and-mouth disease inquiry on Tuesday how there was no policy direction when he was first drafted in.

Mr Birtwistle, who has since retired, was speaking on the first day of the inquiry in Kendal, Cumbria.

The county was one of the worst hit during the foot-and-mouth epidemic last year.

I had a contingency plan for everything - aeroplane crashes, nuclear disasters - but not foot-and-mouth

Brigadier Alex Birtwistle

Mr Birtwistle, 54, told the hearing he had been asked by the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) to oversee the culling operation in March 2001.

He said: "I immediately noted a long delay between diagnosis [of the disease] and slaughter, which was running at four or five days.

"I noted an absence of resources - trucks, slaughtermen, and guns.

"Most critically there was a backlog of animals lying on the ground."

Mr Birtwistle said one estimate was that 50,000 animals were lying waiting to be disposed of.

Health risks

He added: "But I believe it was more than twice that.

"Some of those bodies had been there for two or three weeks."

A vital policy on disposing of the carcasses was not available, he said, adding: "No risk assessment had been carried out at a national or regional level.

"All crises, by definition, contain risks.

"There are political risks, there were public health risks and there were long-term environmental risks.

Critical shortage

"All these risks must be assessed, prioritised and managed. I concluded that these risks had not been satisfactorily assessed."

Mr Birtwistle said he was convinced if strict quarantine procedures had been put in place immediately, foot-and-mouth could have been contained in Cumbria.

He said: "The scale of the operation was massive.

"There were insufficient resources to deal with the outbreaks. There were 30-40 outbreaks a day and we neither had a disposal site or a clear policy."

'Slaughtermen unqualified'

Mr Birtwistle said no organisation or agency in charge had a plan to deal with the crisis, adding: "I had a contingency plan for everything - aeroplane crashes, nuclear disasters - but not foot-and-mouth."

By the time he became involved, the crisis was out of control, he said.

He added: "I started off with no trucks at all.

"There was a critical shortage of vets. Many slaughtermen were unqualified.

"If there had been a policy it would have been much better."