In what is a bizarre natural phenomenon, Mizoram is going through a plague attack because a bamboo plant is blossoming.
The rat plague occurs once every 50 years in Mizoram – a tiny state of 900,000 people squeezed between India’s borders with Bangladesh and Burma – and is linked to the flowering of a rare species of bamboo, the Mautam or melocanna baccifera. It flowers all together, dropping millions of protein-rich seeds that are devoured by the rats, causing a population explosion. When the seed supply is exhausted the rats move to crops and granaries. [link]
This phenomenon takes place roughly every 50 years. The Mizoram government has been preparing for this and is well aware of how things can gowrong, and totally out of control.
The Government of Mizoram is gearing up to prepare a comprehensive multi-sectoral action plan to meet the requirements of all aspects of the bamboo flowering phenomenon in the State. There is a State Level BAFFACOS Committee and Working Group under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary respectively.
From past experiences, bamboo flowering in Mizoram is usually accompanied by considerable increase of rodent population. The destruction of food crops results in food scarcity and famine. The epidemiological imbalance also leads to increased risk of infection or outbreaks of rodent borne diseases.
All I can say is, nature has its strange ways.
