ANKARA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Three villages in northwestern Turkey were put under quarantine and authorities began culling poultry after preliminary tests showed bird flu could be present in dead chickens, state Anatolian news agency said on Tuesday.

The quarantined villages are in Sakarya Province, 125 kilometres (78 miles) east of Turkey's biggest city Istanbul.

Turkey detected bird flu virus in dead chickens in Samsun province, in the northern part of the country, on Sunday.

"The first evidence indicates (bird flu). We are waiting for final labaratory test results. We have taken every measure and there is nothing to worry about," said Sakarya Provincial Agriculture Director Abdurrahman Cakar.

Last month, Turkey culled nearly 600 poultry in villages in Zonguldak, another province on the Black Sea coast, after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was identified.

Turkey lies on the migratory route for wild birds flying south from Scandinavia and Siberia to north Africa for winter.

Four people died from bird flu in eastern Turkey in 2006 after they came into contact with sick birds.

Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form easily passed from human to human and kill millions of people.

An outbreak of bird flu in the winter of 2006 hit Turkey's tourism industry and seriously damaged the poultry sector. (Reporting by Selcuk Gokoluk, Editing by Peter Blackburn)

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