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Swarm of locusts invading Russia looks like the end of the world

Everything is fine.
 By 
Brian Koerber
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The year 2016 was pretty bad, but hey, it's 2017 now and we have a swarm of locusts invading the Earth. Everything is fine.

The clip at the top of this post was filmed in the East Kazakhstan region on Wednesday, and shows a vehicle driving into a swarm of countless locusts.

During a second incident in another location in southern Russia, a truck driver traveling along a highway in the republic of Dagestan captured a gray cloud slowly approaching the vehicle. When the cloud gets closer, as seen in the video below, it becomes clear that it's not a dust storm, but a sea of swarming locusts.

While it may seem like a plague is upon us, swarms of millions of locusts invading areas in southern Russia is actually not that uncommon.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food for the Republic of Dagestan, the swarm affected 114,500 hectares of farmland, despite attempts to stop the swarms through fumigation. Last month, the agency declared a state of emergency when a massive swarm hit the area,

The BBC reports the locust swarms have been happening for years, and Motherboard reported in 2016 that rising temperatures are causing locust swarms to happen more frequently.

We're sure that all is fine and this isn't a sign that the end is near.

Topics Animals

photo of brian
Brian Koerber

Brian was the Culture Editor and has been working at Mashable on the web culture desk since 2014.

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