Two billion mice attack China

BEIJING (AP) — Nearly a half-million people fled a flood zone surrounding central China's swollen Huai River, while high waters in the south unleashed a plague of 2 billion field mice.
Authorities in Hunan were on alert yesterday for rodent-related diseases after launching a massive extermination of field mice, driven from their holes by floodwaters. Residents rushed to contain and kill an estimated 2 billion mice that ravaged crops in 22 counties.
China Central Television showed Yiyang city residents beating the rodents to death with clubs and shovels. Some were scooped from lakeside ditches with fishing nets, and many others were poisoned.
Residents had killed more than 2.3 million mice — 90 tons of them — since June 21. The dead mice were covered with lime and buried in deep pits to prevent the spread of disease. There were no reports yet of disease, but an estimated 1,000 cats died in Hunan's Binhu village after eating poisoned mice.