People living close to the pyres are advised to avoid sustained exposure, it added.

BBC: Three await foot-and-mouth results

They were used all over again in the late Bronze Age (1200-800 BC) as cremation cemeteries and cremation pyres.

BBC: Discovering Britain��s prehistoric stone circles

Open pyres should be avoided and only used as a final resort.

BBC: At a glance: NFU disease report

Mr Brown said vaccination had not been ruled out but the cull policy continued, amid concerns about pollution from the burning pyres.

BBC: Six months of farm misery

But others point out that while this is the case, the pyres are concentrated in small areas rather than spread throughout the nation.

BBC: Foot-and-mouth pyres: Dioxin danger?

But earlier this year, members of the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society asked Newcastle City Council to allow them to build an al fresco site for funeral pyres.

ECONOMIST: Cremation: Up in flames | The

During the crisis, as well as the decimation of livestock farming, British tourism was badly affected, with foreign visitors put off by images of burning pyres of carcasses.

BBC: Foot and mouth rules set to be eased

Nadesar guests invariably want to witness the daily spectacle (best seen by boat): children plunging off the ghats, ascetics in search of alms, shrouded bodies covered in marigolds delivered to the funeral pyres.

FORBES: Lifestyle Feature

One of the series' most beautiful effects occurs during a funeral, when the bodies of tribe members killed in battle are set alight on elevated pyres and then rise slowly toward the sky in a shower of sparks.

WSJ: Neverland on SyFy; I Hate My Teenage Daughter on Fox: Television Reviews by Nancy deWolf Smith

It said that exposure to the smoke from the pyres can exacerbate the symptoms of asthma, and that people less than half a kilometre from even small pyres may be exposed to high concentrations of irritants such as sulphur dioxide.

BBC: Three await foot-and-mouth results