Last-ditch bid to repel ravenous rodents

An estimated two billion field mice are chomping their way hungrily through crops in 22 counties around the Dongting Lake in central China's Hunan Province.

Floods have forced the mice from their homes on islands in the lake.

Authorities in Yiyang, Yuanjiang, Junshan and Huarong are rushing to build walls and dig ditches to keep the mice away from flood-control dikes and cropland.

	2 Billion Chinese Mice Overrun Lake Area	Associated Press	Mon Jul 9	3
	Central China on disease alert after rats invade	xinhuanet	Wed Jul 11	0