DARWIN, Australia, April 18 Huge Australian termites are posing a threat to cocoa, coffee and timber plantations in Papua New Guinea.
The mastotermes were accidentally taken to Papua New Guinea during World War II and were thought to have been eradicated in the 1970s.
But now the termites have been discovered in the township of Lae where they destroyed a section of a local hospital.
A spokesman for the North Territory Department of Primary Industry says the damage could be "catastrophic" if the termites spread from the wet area of Lae to the drier crop lands. The spokesman, Brian Wilson, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that authorities "obviously need to eradicate the termites."
Copyright 2007 by UPI
