SYANGJA:  A swarm of locusts that landed in Kaligandaki Rural Municipality in Syangja district on Sunday evening and flew away after few hours has returned to the same place on Monday in a swarm of tens of thousands.

The grasshopper like insects have started gobbling crops all at once at Satuka, Khorbir, Pyugha, Chapdanda, Bastari, Gurungdi of wards 1, 2 and 4 of the rural municipality.

The locals had used smoke and high sound by striking tin plates to chase the gluttonous insect that had arrived here in three different groups through adjacent Palpa and Gulmi districts.

Khima Bahadur Thapa, Chairman of Kaligandaki Rural Municipality, said that the group of locusts had flown away on Sunday but returned to the same place in a larger number on Monday and started eating crops all of a sudden.

He said that the rural municipality had announced to provide a hundred rupees for a kg of the locusts whoever kills and brings them. He said the swarm of locusts was not small as rumoured, but a swarm of tens of thousands.

Yam Prasad Shrestha, chief of agriculture section, said the locusts that came from Raniraha side of Palpa had entered orchards and fields and started eating everything thereby causing great damage to the crops and also creating food security problems in the area.