Karachi: Beware! It’s 'bluebottle' stingers season

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Amar Guriro
KARACHI: A large number of Portuguese Man O’ Wars, also known as bluebottles, washed ashore on the beaches of the city Friday morning. The appearance of bluebottles, especially at Sandspit and Hawkesbay, panicked the picnickers at the beaches.

These creatures stung many picnickers at the beaches. Among them was a fifth grader 10-year-old Rutab, who had come to Sandspit with a large group of relatives. The blue bottle stung him on his right leg.

“First I felt that a sharp object had cut me, but then the pain increased sharply and I realised that I was bitten by the blue bottle ... I started shouting and then my mother came to get it off my leg,” he said.

Among the group was Dr Abid Azhar, a faculty member of Dr AQ Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (KIBGE), University of Karachi, who was aware of the presence of bluebottles and therefore had asked the ladies in the group to take some onions along with them. Onion serves as a quick remedy for a blue bottle bite.

The stinging sea creature looks like a jellyfish, but its not.

The Portuguese Man O’ War is named for its air bladder, which looks similar to the triangular sails of the Portuguese ship of the 15th and 16th centuries.

The people living near the beach say that bluebottles appear on the city’s major beaches between July and September, during which thousands of picnickers get stung by its tentacles. They say that usually this marine animal is found in deep seas, but during monsoon in the high tide season in the Arabian Sea, they are washed ashore.

The residents of the coastal areas treat its sting with traditional homemade remedies. An office-bearer of the Fisherfolk Development Organisation (FDO), a non-governmental organisation working in Kakapir village at Sandspit beaches, said that usually people apply onion, Multani Matti, petrol and other things on the wounds for relief.

He said that they also give cold water to the victim. FDO President Abdul Ghani said that there is no state-run hospital in the area to treat the picnickers affected with the venom of bluebottles. He said annually, millions of people from Karachi and other parts of the province visit Sandspit, Hawkesbay and other beaches and they suffer the sting of bluebottles. He said that on Friday, him and his colleagues helped 10 picnickers stung by bluebottles through traditional remedies. The powerful sting of a blue bottle can be a terrible experience and sometimes, the pain is so agonising that a victim feels as if he or she is dying.

A 25-year-old businessman from Gulshan-e-Iqbal describes the ordeal of being bitten by a blue bottle. “I started vomiting and than a strange abdominal pain started...it was if I was dying, but the locals of the area applied some onion juice on the wound and I felt better after an hour,” he said.

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