More than 500 people have been hospitalized in Egypt after being bitten by scorpions driven into homes by flooding in the southern city of Aswan, about 950 km from Cairo.
According to the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram, residents were transferred to local hospitals to receive doses of antidote to scorpion venom.
The identified species — the black scorpion, also known as the fat-tailed scorpion — is considered one of the most lethal. It usually measures between three and four centimeters and emits a noise from its body vibrations to locate its prey.
Its venom can kill an untreated adult in an hour, which is why the animal has been classified by scientists as Androctonus crassicauda, which can be translated as “a killer of men”, according to the Al Jazeera network.
The scorpions entered homes after a storm rarely seen in Aswan, a city that receives an average of 1 millimeter of rain a year. Last Friday (12), however, torrential rains flooded the city, and the floods carried the scorpions, which normally live in the desert, to the inhabited regions.
According to the governor of Aswan, Ashraf Attia, the storm was the worst in the city for 11 years. At least three members of Egypt’s security forces died in the floods, which also damaged roads and felled dozens of trees.
Classes have been suspended, there have been several reports of power outages and even maritime traffic on the Nile River has been temporarily disrupted.
A storm of this magnitude is yet another example of the increased occurrence of extreme events as a result of climate change. Science points out that global warming generates an accumulation of energy in the atmosphere that dissipates through extreme events, which, in turn, tend to become more and more frequent and more intense.
The state-run Al Ahram newspaper reported that authorities had called in doctors who were on vacation to work on care for the victims, and hospitals in the area were placed on high alert.
Also according to the publication, three people died from scorpion bites, but the information was denied by the Egyptian Ministry of Health, which guaranteed that all units were well supplied with antidotes.
Residents who were bitten reported symptoms such as severe pain, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle tremors and spasms in the head region.
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