The rat plague was brought on during early 2008 by the first flowering of the region’s bamboo forests in 50 years.

Rodents have since multiplied at an alarming rate because they have been able to breed eight times per year after eating the bamboo blossoms, compared to only four times annually during normal conditions.

Steven Belmain, a rodent ecologist from Britain's University of Greenwich currently in Bangladesh studying the infestation, said the rodent population has been doubling every three weeks.

Many residents say they have been bitten by the rats, which have invaded homes, eating stored food supplies and gnawing on people as they slept.

The World Food Program began to hand out $3 million in emergency food supplies to the area last May, not long after the rat population first exploded.

The last rat plague in Bangladesh was brought on by the bamboo flowering of 1958. That infestation created a crippling famine, which lasted for three consecutive years.

Photo: Mufty Munir Munir