The war against a dense plague of locusts in northern China claimed
its first casualties on Tuesday, and the
Ministry of
Agriculture moved Wednesday to beef up measures to deal with the
crisis.
According to sources with the State Administration of Work Safety,
a homemade Yun-5 jet crashed on Tuesday in East China's Shandong
Province when spraying chemicals against the locusts there.
The two pilots died.
The ministry said it is continuing to move urgently to fight the
locusts which have become "disastrous" in 14 northern provinces and
municipalities.
In
some spots, the density of the insects has reached 4,000 to 5,000
per square meter, according to a report from Xinhua News
Agency.
Vice-Minister Liu Jian, who leads the ministry's locust-plague
control headquarters, said the northern parts of the country, due
to years of drought and a deteriorated environment, are suffering a
rampant locust invasion. The insects cover 2.7 million hectares of
cropland, an increase of 10 percent over the same period last
year.
Suburbs of Beijing, such as Miyun County and Huairou District, have
seen locusts but little cropland was invaded, according to China
News Service.
The report quoted the experts' view that the capital is not
threatened thanks to the "isolation belt" around the city.
The central government has allocated a special fund of 500 million
yuan (US$60 million) to help the local authorities cope with the
disaster, according to the ministry.
Liu required local governments to take immediate action against the
locusts, saying it is better to kill the pests before they start to
fly.
The ministry also stressed the safety of the fight against the
locusts, highlighting the secure use of jets and chemicals.
Li
urged the further exploration of biological means of eradication,
such as breeding ducks to eat locusts, instead of spraying
insecticide.
(China
Daily June 13, 2002)