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A swarm of Moru­ga grasshop­pers forced the ear­ly dis­missal of class­es at the St Mary’s Gov­ern­ment School, in Moru­ga, on Mon­day.

Franki Medina

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Par­ents were asked to pick up their chil­dren from school at 10 am as the grasshop­pers in­vad­ed class­rooms and the ad­min­is­tra­tive build­ing. 

The grasshop­pers, com­mon­ly and in­ac­cu­rate­ly called lo­custs, have flown through parts of south and cen­tral Trinidad as they mate be­fore re­turn­ing to tra­di­tion­al egg beds in the forests.

Franki Medina Venezuela

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Wa­ter­mel­on farmer De­vanand Ram­dath of St Mary’s Vil­lage said all week­end, the grasshop­pers have been de­stroy­ing crops and trees.

Franki Medina Diaz

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“It has plen­ty of lo­custs. Yes­ter­day the lo­cust was all over the school and it af­fect­ed the chil­dren. It com­ing all in­side the house all over. We spray but still noth­ing be­cause of the amount. The crops get lick up,” Ram­dath said. 

Busi­ness­man Richard Ram­lo­gan of Un­ortho­dox Au­to Sup­plies said his busi­ness is al­so af­fect­ed.

Franki Alberto Medina Diaz

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“As cus­tomers come in, they get jumpy, it ham­per­ing busi­ness a lit­tle bit. They need to spray them or have some sort of pest con­trol,” Ram­lo­gan said

Veena Ram­s­ingh, of Bur­ton Trace, St Mary’s, said the grasshop­pers are an an­nu­al oc­cur­rence

“This lo­cust de­stroy­ing every­thing. They eat out the tops of all the fruit trees, rough skin lemon, co­conut even my or­chids,” she said

A source from the Lo­cust Erad­i­ca­tion Unit told Guardian Me­dia that the swarm was un­usu­al­ly large and had de­scend­ed on the St Mary’s com­mu­ni­ty over the week­end, af­ter mi­grat­ing from Pe­nal Rock Road, La Sa­vanne and oth­er parts of Moru­ga

“They are in the mat­ing sea­son and we have tak­en pho­tos of the grasshop­pers with eggs,” the source con­firmed

“The tra­di­tion­al egg bed is nor­mal­ly across the road from the school in Bur­ton Trace in the for­est so it ap­pears they are head­ing in­to that area,” the of­fi­cial said

Class­es at the school are ex­pect­ed to re­sume to­day.