A 14-year-old Viana do Castelo student who was stung yesterday (October 8) by what is commonly known as an Asian Killer Hornet has been “treated and is out of danger”, Lusa news agency has reported.
It all happened when one of the trees of the Barroselas School toppled due to “strong winds”.
Unknown to the authorities, the tree had a hornets’ nest which was destroyed due to the impact.
The youngster is believed to have been near the tree at the time, a source from the local fire department told Lusa. This species of hornet tends to attack when its nest is threatened or disturbed.
The teenager was quickly taken to the hospital while the school’s 600 students were evacuated as a precaution.
But that hasn’t been an end to the matter. Viana do Castelo council is now up in arms against the Ministry of Agriculture for what happened.
“Today’s incident is due exclusively to the Ministry of Agriculture’s incapability to deal with an issue that it was warned about nearly two years ago,” the council stated in a press release sent to Lusa. The municipality accuses the ministry of “burying its head in the sand”.
Says the council, out of the 216 hornet nests that have been found locally, 27 were destroyed by residents and 63 by firefighters.
The council has since requested that the ministry take “effective and urgent measures” to deal with the “serious problem that affects public health and the local economy”.
As reported in the Resident last month, Asian Killer Hornets are proliferating in Portugal and could arrive in the Algarve within less than three years.
