Two billion rats are on march in central China

FE Team | Published: July 12, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Farmers put rats in sack and bury them deep in order to avoid further damage.

BEIJING, July 11 (AFP): Two billion rats that have fled their flooded homes are on the march in central China, destroying farmland and posing a health risk to humans, state press reported Wednesday.
The rats have spread out across 20 counties in central Hunan province, gnawing on crops and roots as they search for new homes, the China Daily said.
Locals have launched a massive counter-attack, beating rats to death with shovels and spreading out loads of poison. One district reported that residents there had killed 2.3 million rats alone, according to the paper.
"It's like the mopping up by enemy troops in wars. We have nothing left," the paper quoted resident Yin Xinjin, 65, saying about the devastated farmland.
The rat plague began on June 23 when floods lifted the water level on Dongting Lake, submerging the rat holes on the islands there, according to the paper.
"It is the largest rat disaster the lakeside region has experienced in the last 10 years," a local government official, Peng Zaizhi, was quoted as saying.
While there have been no major impacts on human health yet, local governments are taking no chances.
"The current focus is on educating the villagers in protecting themselves while killing the rats, and supervising the local health situation," Peng said.