DISASTERs - Locust

THE WORLD

DISASTERS

DISASTERS LOCUST

                   The swarm is vast. It blocks out the Sun. As many as 50 billion ravenously hungry insects are on the move, As the sinister black cloud, 50 km long, passes over green fields, it suddenly wheels and descends with the deafening beat of countless wings. Minutes later, thousand of tonnes of crops have been devoured. All across Africa, in the summer of 1988, people faced famine because of an old enemy- the locust plague.
 


Danger in numbers
         The African migratory locust is only 5 cm long. but in its adult, winged state it can fly up to 5,000 km between breeding cycles. Each time the swarm feeds,females lay hundreds of eggs, swelling the numbers of locusts by 100 times or more.


1. the wet winter of 1987-88 in Mali and Mauritania was ideal for locust breeding.

2. Early in 1988, the warms moved north to devastate crops in Morocco and Algeria.

3. By june, the swarm had eaten 1m tonnes of crops in Chad, Niger and Sudan.

4. Swarms then spread southeast to Ethiopia, reaching Saudi Arabia in autumn 1988.


5. In October, a swarm was blown 5,000 km across the Atlantic, a record flight of 5 days.


6. In 1989, a swarm of locusts reached India, almost 10,000 km from the first breeding area.