The scorpions are said to have made their way into homes and streets after a storm dropped heavy rains in the area
Hundreds of people were injured by scorpions after heavy storms swept through Southern Egypt this weekend.
According to BBC, the city of Aswan was hit by a violent storm on Friday and Saturday, unleashing heavy rain and hail that sent swarms of scorpions from their hiding spaces into roads and homes of residents located near the Nile River.
More than 500 people were stung by the venomous arachnids during the invasion, the Associated Press reported, leading the government to send extra doses of antivenom to medical centers in the area’s remote mountain and desert regions, BBC added.
A video circulating on Twitter purportedly showed a scorpion trying to enter a home during the storm.
Al-Ahram, a newspaper run by the Egyptian government, said doctors on vacation were called back to hospitals to help the injured. Hospitalized residents were discharged after they were given antivenom.
While some reports attributed three deaths that occurred during the storms to scorpion stings, acting Health Minister Khalid Abdel-Ghafar refuted the claim, according to the AP.
Ehab Hanafy, the undersecretary of the Health Ministry, said the deaths were “due to storm-related accidents” and “absolutely not because of scorpion stings,” the Washington Post reported.
On social media, videos from Southern Egypt showed strong rains beating down on the city during the storms, along with numerous lightning strikes in the area.
Al-Ahram also reported that snakes traveled into the city as a result of the storms.
While the species of scorpion involved in the injuries were not identified, Egypt’s fat-tailed scorpion is considered “one of the most deadly” of them in the world, according to the St. Louis Zoo.
They are also nocturnal and use neurotoxic venom, which is “fast-acting and can be absorbed very quickly,” a page on the Abu-Dhabi Environment Agency’s website said.
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Original Article: https://people.com/human-interest/swarm-of-scorpions-kill-3-injure-hundreds-during-storm-in-egypt/
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