At least 139 flamingos have died after being electrocuted by high tension wires in the Indian state of Gujarat, forest officials say.

The birds were part of nearly half a million flamingos who have migrated from Siberia to breed in the warm marshy areas of the state's coast.

Officials said the birds possibly got disturbed by traffic at night and flew into the newly installed wires.

Measures have now been taken to stop them from coming near the wires.

'Unprecedented numbers'

"The post-mortem has confirmed that the flamingos died from electrocution," Dinesh Kumar Sharma, chief conservator of forests in Gujarat, told the BBC.

"We have deployed forest officials in the area. We have also put up reflectors and flags to ensure that the birds don't come near the wires," he said.

Mr Sharma said the incident happened about 10 days ago and there have been no new incidents since then.

The flamingos generally come in the last week to October to early November to a small island in the Rann of Kutch area, popularly known as "flamingo city".

Breeding takes place in the last week of December and the birds return to Siberia in February and March.

Mr Sharma says normally 30,000 to 40,000 flamingos come to Gujarat, but this time the area received good rainfall bringing with it an unprecedented numbers of winged visitors.