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Soldiers and heatlh officials fumigate vehicles entering Jeongchiri with decontaminants on Jan. 19.

Jiongchiri, South Korea-- More than 140 cases of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) have been confirmed nationwide in South Korea and millions of cows and pigs have been culled, but Lim Kang-soo never believed his cows could fall victim to this highly contagious animal disease.

Lim, a resident of Jeongchiri near Gongju in South Chungcheong Province, confidently invested his life savings into a small cow farm, believing in its notoriously strict vaccination policies -- until eight of his cattle tested positive for FMD last month.

"We sterilized ourselves head to toe whenever we stepped in and out of the shed," Lim said."Our village is tucked away deep in the hills, 60 kilometers away from the closest FMD case. How could this have happened?"

An independent investigation, commissioned by the Icheon municipality west of Seoul and released last week, gave weight to the argument that transmission by air and not direct contact might have been the primary force behind the rapid spread of the lethal airborne virus.

"Judging by the fact that the FMD spread rapidly in heavily controlled areas while they were quarantined, there is great possibility that the disease was boosted by this winter's cold snap and strong winds, transmitting pathogens via air," said the municipality in a press release.

South Korea's worst-ever FMD epidemic broke out in November, the third time South Korea has been hit by the disease in just over a year. In response to the outbreak, more than 3 million animals -- 20 percent of the nation's livestock -- have been dumped in industrial-sized mass graves and swiftly plowed over with bulldozers.

Government officials say this is the only measure quick enough to contain the outbreak, but the method has sparked outrage over its inhumane treatment of animals and the hasty cull posing a potentially major environmental threat.

Animal rights advocates have criticized the government for burying animals alive without administering enough euthanasia drug to first render them unconscious. Officials have denied animal cruelty but have admitted to some live burials due to drug shortage.

Some of the 4,600 burial sites nationwide could collapse during high temperatures or rain with the disease-infected carcasses polluting groundwater supplies, the Environment Ministry said last week after a preliminary survey of the mass graves.

Burial sites have been dug impromptu into slopes and groundwater reservoir feeds due to lack of space to contain the volume of infected livestock in the crowded country, the ministry said.

The deaths have caused many veterinarians and quarantine officers involved in the culling to suffer from post-traumatic stress, complaining of constantly hearing dying animals' last cries.

One farmer from Chungju, a city in central South Korea, was found dead in an apparent suicide, a day after his cow had tested positive for FMD, local police said.

Buddhist monks have held prayer sessions for the slaughtered animals and Christian ministers have volunteered to counsel distraught farmers.

In Jeongchiri, residents have been banned from leaving their homes and the village since the cull. Traffic has been cut off on all roads within a 30-kilometer radius. Six checkpoints have been set up on all roads leading to the village of 4,000, with health officials spraying all vehicles traveling to and from the area.

Daily deliveries of food and other supplies have been cut down to weekly deliveries by soldiers who pass through three sterilization checkpoints run by quarantine officials.

Streets that should be filled with tractors shuttling cows to markets to be sold at high-end butcher shops in Seoul instead stood eerily empty, while neighbors peeked out the window at any rare movement on the roads. One resident refused to allow journalists who had been sterilized onto her driveway, instead writing her phone number on the window.

One quarantine specialist, who asked to be identified only as "Lee" due to department policy, said she is slated to serve at her designated checkpoint for two weeks, when the traffic ban expires.

"My sustenance for two weeks is ramen noodles, since fresh fruits and groceries will be a luxury for someone who has to keep watch with a disinfectant spray at bay," she said sullenly.

For Jeongchiri farmer Lim, the biggest struggles with the cull are financial, as the cows were his entire fortune amounting to 56 million won ($50,000).

The government has pledged an insurance policy for FMD-affected farmers, promising to reimburse the exact value of the cows they lost, but Lim says that won't be enough for most farmers who are already in debt from getting the farm started.

"And even if we had money we couldn't buy new cows because our shed is quarantined for six months," said Lim. "We lost our assets and our income. We have nothing to live by."

Lim's wife, Kim Ja-ok, said that after her eight cows were disposed of last month in a ditch nearby, she, too, felt suicidal, but from a different type of stress -- guilt and social pressure.

"The village was known for its 200 years of disease-free cow farming and we have marred its name," said Kim. "People we have known for decades now refuse to speak to us, because they're afraid they could catch the disease from us and pass it on to their cows."

Moon Myung-on, a township official in charge of livestock control in Jeongchiri, said he feels like all "efforts were in vain."

"We've done our absolute best to make sure that Jeongchiri maintains its disease-free reputation but all of our efforts were in vain," said Moon. "If I could know what I had done wrong, then I wouldn't feel so useless and worthless."

Jeongchiri community leader Han Seong-keun says the situation in the village probably is nowhere as bad as what things are like in North Korea.

The impoverished North has also been struck with an FMD outbreak across many parts of the country after the first case was confirmed in the capital Pyongyang on December 25, a report by the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health said last week, citing information submitted by North Korea. The report did not mention whether the virus had traveled from the South to the North.

North Korea confirmed that more than 11,000 animals have been infected so far but did not say whether any of them were destroyed as a preventive measure, the report said.

The North, which already suffers serious food shortages, has also reported the outbreak to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, according to Seoul's agriculture ministry.

"The fact that it made its way into the most isolated and one of the most hungry countries in the world. This makes foot-and-mouth disease a fearsome disease," said Han as he sprayed his shoes with a disinfectant.