Man is attacked and killed by murder hornets
An elderly man has died after being stung by murder hornets
The man, known as Celso, aged in his 70s, was picking persimmons in Gondomar, Portugal, on Thursday when the insects attacked him, Portuguese paper Jornal de Noticias reports.
Abílio Rodrigues, 60, was working with him at the time and was also attacked.
"I had never seen anything like this before," he told the paper.
He added he was picking fruit from a tree when he was attacked. He nearly fell from a six-foot ladder.
Mr Rodrigues said when he got down he ran to Celso for help but found he too had been stung.
He went into respiratory arrest and despite assistance for first responders died at the scene.
Murder hornets, also known as Asian giant hornets, are native to southeast Asia.
However, in recent years there have been sightings in the US.
In Japan, they cause up to 50 deaths a year, The Australian reported. They also kill bees by decapitating them and can wipe out entire colonies.
Most fatalities involving stings from them involve anaphylactic shock or cardiac arrest and this is normally after a large number of stings, according to the Clinical Toxicology journal.
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