Racing to contain an avian flu outbreak, about 400 workers culled 112,000 birds at two Kumamoto chicken farms from Sunday night through Monday.

After bagging up the live chickens, the workers, dressed in white protective suits, surgical masks and rubber boots, gassed them with carbon dioxide and buried them at the two farms, one in the town of Taragi and the other in the village of Sagara.

Two hundred Ground Self-Defense Force personnel, dispatched from the 8th Division based in the city of Kumamoto, joined the culling effort and delivered caustic lime to disinfect the farms.