Swarms of yellow-spined bamboo locusts have destroyed about 26 square miles of fields in Pu’er after raiding the city from China’s border with Laos, the local government said.
The locusts are reported crossing China’s border from Laos. Local government warns a major impending locust plague between now and September.
The Pu’er forestry authority issued a disaster control warning, predicting a potential locust ‘disaster’ in China’s southern border regions after the spread of the pests ‘accelerated’ last Thursday.
Chinese officials have warned about a looming locust plague in the country after yellow-spined bamboo locusts invaded a city in south-western Chinese province Yunnan since June 28.
The locust is the main pest of China’s bamboo-producing regions as it devours all the bamboo leaves in its paths while killing off the commercially valuable stalks.
Pu’er government said in a notice on Thursday: ‘The invasion of the yellow-spined bamboo locusts from abroad is accelerating. We can detect new clusters invading every day.‘
The large infestation of the pests is also possibly spreading to nearby counties and pose a risk of damaging agricultural crops, the officials warned.
Footage released by Pear Video shows swarms of the insects flying across the sky in the city’s Jiangcheng county, which borders with Laos.
The neighbouring country of China has been ravaged by the yellow-spined bamboo locusts since late March, according to local media.
The Pu’er authorities said that they first detected the pest invasion along the border between Pu’er and Laos on June 28.
Since then, the city has continued to spot new clusters every, said the forestry officials in a notice yesterday.
‘Based on initial research and judgement, there is a high possibility of a disaster of yellow-spined bamboo locust escalating in border regions between July to September,‘ the authorities warned.
An estimated total of 6,593 hectares of land has been ravaged by the grasshoppers, the Pu’er government said.
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