Documentary Nature

Every 48 years, the inhabitants of the remote Indian state of Mizoram suffer a horrendous ordeal known locally as Mautam. An indigenous species of bamboo, blanketing 30 percent of Mizoram's 8,100 square miles, blooms once every half-century, spurring an explosion in the rat population, which feeds off the bamboo's fruit. This special captures the massive rat population explosion in vivid detail. The rats run amok, destroying crops and precipitating a crippling famine throughout Mizoram. Rat Attack! follows this gripping tale of nature's capacity to engender human suffering, and investigates the botanical mystery of why the bamboo flowers and why the rats attack with clockwork precision every half-century.