Hundreds of the weasel-like animals -- confiscated from farms, wildlife markets and restaurants in southern China's Guangdong province -- were being put into vats filled with disinfectant and drowned before being burned.

"We put the civet cats in cages, which hold a maximum of four to five animals each. Then we put the cages into the pool and drown them," an official with the Guangzhou City Animal Quarantine and Monitoring Institute told AFP.

"We then take them out to be cremated."

Local newspapers carried photos of workers in full-body white suits, face-masks and gloves fishing the drowned animals out of the disinfectant pools.

Some places were liquefying the animals by cooking them in 200 degree Celsius pressure pots for up to six hours -- a method which turns even bones into liquid and kills all bacteria, the Guangzhou Daily said.

China's government ordered the cull after the health ministry and the WHO confirmed Monday that the virus, which left around 800 dead and infected 8,000 in a global health crisis last year, had resurfaced after a half-year lull.

A 32-year-old television journalist from Guangdong was infected and scientists found civet cats had a similar virus to the victim.

Formerly considered a culinary delicacy, civet cats are now marked as a public danger.

"All civet cats (in Guangdong) must be captured and killed before January 10th," Guangdong's communist party secretary Zhang Dejiang said.

Guangdong's agriculture, forestry and police officials fanned out to farms, wildlife markets, hotels and restaurants, train stations and airports to round up the animals, which are bred for the dinner table.

More than 2,000 had been snared from farms and 41 farms shut down so far.

No official figures have been issued on the number of civet cats killed. Officials estimated that around 10,000 would be slaughtered.

Even frozen carcasses of the animals were confiscated and destroyed.

WHO officials, meanwhile, warned the slaughter could cause more infections if not carried out properly, exposing the virus to people doing the killing and to the environment.

"Animals when they're stressed, do shed stronger virus loads. So if the civets are about to be killed, hunted or trapped, they would be shedding viruses more rapidly," said Roy Wadia, a Beijing-based WHO spokesman.

While those doing the slaughtering wore protective gear, workers confiscating the animals did not.

WHO officials also expressed concern the cull might detract attention from the need to look for other sources of the virus.

"The danger then is that we may not find out what the real source was," Ian Simpson, WHO spokesman in Geneva, told Australian radio.

While civet cats and other animals have been found to carry the SARS virus, it was still unknown how humans contracted the illness.

The outbreak of SARS, which first surfaced in Guangdong in November 2002, spread panic in China and neighboring countries in Asia, prompting schools and businesses to shut down and damaging tourism and other sectors of the economy.

Confirmation of the Guangdong case has sparked fears of a new SARS epidemic.

Southern Hainan province said it would also ban civet cats while Beijing was checking the temperatures of all passengers arriving from Guangdong.

TERRA.WIRE