Down blaze kills 800 piglets

Nearly 1,000 pigs and piglets were killed in a fire at a Co Down piggery today.

The 800 piglets and 80 pigs perished when fire swept through the piggery at breakfast time.

Police said only a very few pigs managed to escape the blaze at the Nugent Estate on Mountain Road in Portaferry.

A PSNI spokeswoman said there was nothing to suggest the fire had been anything but an accident, but the building was so badly damaged that experts had yet to get in to carry out an examination.