Swarms of Locusts Attack MP Again: The Quint’s Ground Report

“The locusts covered the plants like a carpet,” said an MP farmer after swarms of locusts invaded Damoh in MP.

The Quint’s reporter from ground zero in Damoh, MP.

(Photo: The Quint)

Video Editor: Varun Sharma
Video Producer: Hera Khan

Locusts continue to attack many areas of north India. The Quint reached Damoh district of Madhya Pradesh and found huge swarms of locusts that had been invading the city for 30-45 minutes.

The Attack Was Sudden

The farmers said that whichever plant the locusts attacked, they just destroyed it.

“We were not able to ward them off. The locusts covered the plants like a carpet. We couldn’t understand how to get rid of them. We initially didn’t have any crackers or some instrument to make noise... We used utensils and bedsheets. We started making noise and realised that they were flying away.”

Satish Patel, Farmer, Damoh

Farmers in Distress

These swarms of locusts are incurring huge losses for farmers. For them the biggest question is – how will they make up for it?

A woman who was trying to ward off the locusts by beating an aluminium sheet said, “We suffered a loss of at least Rs 10,000-20,000.”

“We had been working for 4-6 months now and were thinking that we will be able to harvest the crops in the next few days. But now... We had planted some saplings but they (locusts) destroyed that also.”

Parvati Patel, Resident, Damoh

The Quint also spoke to local agricultural scientists regarding the locust invasion. They told us that the swarms were moving from Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh to Uttar Pradesh. But there is no one big swarm of locusts. They are now divided into several groups.

In Damoh, there have been instances of locust attacks at certain places earlier but this attack was a horrific one.

The trail of the swarms of locusts is at least 3-4 km long.

The swarm of locusts had taken a mountain-like form in the sky.