A Blossoming of Rats Plagues Bangladesh

Bangladesh's exploding rat population grew on the bamboo blossoms, then turned to crops.

The first flowering of southeast Bangladesh’s bamboo forests in 50 years has led to a plague of rats that has destroyed crops and brought the region to the brink of famine.

The number of rats exploded late last year as the flowers provided a huge food source for the pests, prompting accelerated breeding.

The bamboo flowering occurs about once every 50 years, with the last occurrence in 1958 causing a similar rodent plague. That infestation brought about a crippling famine for three consecutive years.

The U.N. Development Program (UNDP) says that nearly all of the crops in the Chittagong Hill Tracts have been devoured by the burgeoning rat population.

UNDP spokesman Prasenjit Chakma told the BBC that people there are eating roots to survive, and that the denuded fields are now dotted with large rat holes.

Scientists have been unable to determine why this one species of bamboo flowers in synchrony, over hundreds of square miles, once every five decades.