Binhu, China – It was early morning when an odd noise awoke Tao Qunxian, a farmer in this village on the banks of Dongting Lake in Hunan province. He looked out his front door to see his entire rice paddy had disappeared overnight. The culprit was a seasonal pest: the eastern field mouse, also referred to here as the rat.
Since they first appeared this year in mid-June, more than 2 billion field mice have been killed, according to state media reports.
Three cities on the banks of Dongting Lake have been overwhelmed with millions of rodents fleeing water-logged homes, as parts of central and southern China suffer one of the worst flood seasons in 50 years.
“You can even hear them as they bite the rice – ‘chir chir chir.’ It’s deafening,” said Tao, the former party secretary of this village of 800, pausing briefly while helping replant a damaged rice field. At their peak, the mice can destroy a 1-acre field in a single afternoon, he said.
Heavy rains have produced landslides and floods that have killed more than 400 people and caused more than $4 billion worth of damage this summer in Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces.
Because of its perennial flooding problems, China has built scores of dams to help control flooding and generate power.
Here in Hunan, Binhu’s infestation is a reminder of how closely some Chinese communities are linked to rivers and how the manipulation of those waterways can affect huge populations.
Because of a drought between September and June, the lake receded early.
“This created a haven for rats to live in and reproduce,” said Xu Hongbin, the current village party secretary.
Last month, when sluice gates were opened to relieve pressure from flooding in neighboring provinces, the suddenly rising lake sent billions of rodents scurrying into Binhu, like a scene from a horror movie.
Government officials provided a poison that would not harm humans or other animals. But as the mice began to overrun Binhu, residents and village officials began to make their own homemade poison, which was 15 times cheaper and – because it contained pesticides – much more lethal.
As a result, the poison also killed about 1,000 cats, 100 dogs and several cows, chickens and pigs, villagers and state media said.
Hunan is trying to raise $800,000 to build a 24-mile wall to prevent future mice infestations; 4 miles of it would run though Binhu.
