JAPAN: Around 750 chickens have died at a poultry farm in a suspected bird flu outbreak.
Officials in Kiyotake in western Japan said tests had begun on the dead chickens, but results would not be known until tomorrow evening.
The deaths began yesterday, according to a staement from the ministry of agriculture.
The farm, around 600 miles from Tokyo, has 12,000 chickens.
Authorities are taking precautionary steps to keep them quarantined on site.
If bird flu is confirmed, the remaining chickens will be destroyed.
Bird flu is generally not harmful to humans, but the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus has claimed at least 157 lives worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry farms in late 2003.
There has been one confirmed human case involving the H5N1 virus in Japan, but no reported human deaths.
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