Three district departments join forces for coordinated response

All available personnel and five spray vehicles deployed

[Provided by Songpa-gu]
[Provided by Songpa-gu]

Seoul's Songpa-gu has launched a large-scale water-spray disinfection campaign, mobilizing all available administrative resources to address residents' complaints about an infestation of Plecia nearctica, commonly known as the "love bug."

"I deeply sympathize with the discomfort residents are feeling and the helplessness of small business owners whose livelihoods are being disrupted," District Mayor Seo Gang-seok said. "We are not dismissing this as a simple natural phenomenon — we are taking immediate emergency action to restore calm to residents' daily lives."

The district has established a joint response framework drawing on three departments — the sanitation administration division, the parks and green spaces division, and the public health center's infectious disease management team — to lead an all-out anti-love bug campaign.

Going beyond conventional sequential spraying by ground crews, the district conducted a simultaneous mass water-spray operation on June 26, deploying about 150 personnel and five disinfection vehicles, including water trucks, to hot spots and areas with concentrated complaints. The operation physically swept away adult love bugs in a single pass. The insects lose mobility when wet, fall to the ground and die.

The district is also maintaining a thorough cleanup operation to deal with the surge of love bug carcasses left after spraying. If the bodies — which contain acidic fluids — are left unattended, they can trigger respiratory allergies, cause skin conditions or corrode vehicle surfaces.

The district has also begun preparing preemptive, longer-term measures ahead of next year. Officials are reviewing the introduction of an eco-friendly biological control method using BTI (Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis), a soil-based microbial agent that acts selectively on fly larvae, timed to coincide with the spring larval hatching period.

"We will mobilize every administrative capability to resolve this situation quickly and safely, with residents' quality of life as our top priority," Seo said. "We will do our utmost to operate a thorough pest-control network — one that covers mass-outbreak insects such as the love bug — so that every resident can enjoy a healthy and comfortable summer."


cook@heraldcorp.com