In the remote Chinese county of Zhong, villagers have been saved from a deadly wasp infestation by a fire-breathing drone.
The remote-controlled flying flamethrower was built by Blue Sky Search and Rescue after legions of stinging wasps moved into the village and surrounding area, near the city of Chongqing.
A fundraiser for a solution to the wasps, whose stings can cause renal failure, liver failure and cardiac injury—sometimes resulting in death in as few as two hours—saw villagers donate around 80,000 RMB, or about $12,250 to cover the cost of the drone, a petrol tank, a nozzle, and the assembly.
In a video released by Blue Sky Rescue, which conducts mountain search and rescue and other emergency services in the more remote parts of China, one can see the drone hover across to just one of over 100 nests and blast it with several gouts of flame, the ash and rubble falling to the floor, dispersing the wasps.
While not the most eco-friendly solution, rural Chinese are often poor, underprivileged minorities living beyond the reach of modern medicine.
Source: GNN