SHANGHAI - A swarm of locusts has forced residents of an Inner Mongolia town into taking drastic measures to stop the insects from settling on surrounding pastures and grasslands, officials said.
Residents of the Chinese border town of Erenhot are maintaining a blackout at night as electric lighting tends to attract the insects.
The Yangcheng Evening News reported Tuesday that the locusts -- which arrived in the region in June -- were "like snow falling from the sky."
Crushed insects blanketed the roads of the remote town, the newspaper said, and the swarm had already engulfed more than 11 million hectares of Inner Mongolia's grasslands.
"Locusts like well-lit places and people turned off their lights so the bugs won't fly into their homes," Zhang Zhuoran, section chief of Inner Mongolia Grassland Plant Protection Station, told Reuters Wednesday.
"The affected area is almost all grassland. The locusts have hit about 10 percent of Inner Mongolia's grassland but the situation is under control," he added."
Residents of the Chinese border town of Erenhot are maintaining a blackout at night as electric lighting tends to attract the insects.
The Yangcheng Evening News reported Tuesday that the locusts -- which arrived in the region in June -- were "like snow falling from the sky."
Crushed insects blanketed the roads of the remote town, the newspaper said, and the swarm had already engulfed more than 11 million hectares of Inner Mongolia's grasslands.
"Locusts like well-lit places and people turned off their lights so the bugs won't fly into their homes," Zhang Zhuoran, section chief of Inner Mongolia Grassland Plant Protection Station, told Reuters Wednesday.
"The affected area is almost all grassland. The locusts have hit about 10 percent of Inner Mongolia's grassland but the situation is under control," he added."
- Notes:Tex Perkins and the Dark Horses - Days Like These
