Slovakia's capital, Bratislava, will carry out a mass spraying of mosquitoes Thursday to counter an invasion of the pests following recent flooding, city council spokeswoman Eva Chudinova told AFP.
The spray campaign, costing 10 million koruna (267,000 euros), is aimed at combatting an infestation which has hit the city of 425,000 on the banks of the River Danube and near the Morava River.
Clouds of mosquitoes have also hit the neighbouring Czech Republic, also affected by April's flooding. Fifteen tonnes of insecticide, some shipped in from the United States, have already been sprayed in the worst-hit region, southern Moravia.
"As soon as the sun starts to set or clouds come, mosquitoes start to spread everywhere," Alena Kotaskova, deputy mayor of the southern Moravian village of Mikulcice, near the Czech-Slovak border, told the Thursday edition of the daily Lidove Noviny.
Around 200 towns and villages and around 2,200 hectares (5,300 acres) of land were hit by the floods in Slovakia.
Source: Agence France-Presse
