US town bowled over by invasion of crickets

Invaders have taken over parts of the US state of Nevada -- but they're not body-snatchers or aliens; they're crickets.

Millions of Mormon crickets are swarming the town of Elko, covering roads and houses -- even blocking hospital access.

Residents say they are fed up with the ground-dwelling creepy-crawlies.

"You feel super violated," Colette Reynolds told CBS.

"When you're inside the house it sounds like it's raining because they just randomly let go of wherever they're hanging onto and drop."

The creatures are even causing problems for the emergency services.

"Just to get patients into the hospital we had people out there with leaf blowers, with brooms," Northeastern Nevada Regional Hospital's Steve Burrows told local KSL TV.

"At one point we even had a tractor with a snowplow on it just to push the piles of crickets and move them on their way," he said.

Nevada's state entomologist Jeff Knight said swarms of the crickets are not uncommon in the region, but just more noticeable as human populations spread to previously wild areas.

The bad news for the people of Elko is that there's not much they can do, but wait for it all to be over.

"There's a route of tolerate it and they probably will move through," Knight told CBS.

Agence France-Presse