INDIA Locust invasion adds to nation’s mounting woes
NEW DELHI — Magan Doodi, a groundskeeper at a golf course in Jaipur, was making his rounds this week when he saw the sky suddenly turn a weird pink.
It wasn’t some quirk of the weather.
It was locusts — millions of them, “like a spreading bedsheet,” he said.
“The locusts have attacked the golf course!” Doodi yelled into his cell phone during the battle Monday. “It’s man versus locusts!”
As if India needed more challenges, with coronavirus infections steadily increasing, a heat wave hitting the capital, and 100 million people out of work, the country now has to fight off a new problem: a locust invasion.
Scientists say it’s the worst attack in 25 years and these locusts are different.
“This time the attack is by very young locusts who fly for longer distances, at faster speeds, unlike adults in the past who were sluggish and not so fast,” said K.L. Gurjar, deputy director of India’s Locust Warning Organization.
The locusts poured in from the west, from Iran and Pakistan, blanketing half a dozen states in western and central India. Because most of the crops were recently harvested, the hungry swarms have buzzed into urban areas, eager to devour bushes and trees, carpeting whatever surface they land on.
On Monday, Jaipur, a sprawling city of 4 million and the biggest in the state of Rajasthan, was besieged. A blizzard of bugs flew over concrete buildings and the wealthier neighborhoods, swooping in on trees and plants, crossing graveyards and jewelry markets, attracted to the manicured golf course in the heart of the city.
After he saw what was happening, Doodi, the groundskeeper, yelled out to the caddies and other key personnel, urging them to make whatever loud noise they could to drive the bugs away.
Residents clamored to protect themselves and their flora, spilling onto the streets banging plates with spoons and jumping into parked cars to honk horns.
“I looked up and saw a cloud, not the cloud that gives you rainfall, but a cloud of locusts, thousands and thousands of them hovering over my head,” said Nikhil Misra, a lawyer in
Jaipur. “It was a silent attack. It was a strange kind of fear, as if being overtaken by aliens.”
Scientists say that this outbreak, though separate from recent outbreaks in East Africa, is driven by the same factors: unusually warm weather and more rain. They blame climate change.