The plague comes every 48 years

In a small northeastern state of india there is a place called mizoram.In mizoram there is a bamboo forest with hundreds of thousand acres of a single species of bamboo, this species of bamboo blooms only once every 48 years.
When this happens,the flowers produce a fruit that is rich in protein, the seeds from these flowers are then eaten by the jungle rats,the rats population then increase dramatically and they come into the village and eat everything in sight, all the farmers grain and food causing a famine.
The last time this happen was in 1959, thousands of people starved to death, the government failure to respond with adequate food aid sparked a guerrilla war that last 20 years.
The bamboo has started to bloom again everyone is nervous,traps and poison have been supplies to the local population to combat the rats that will be coming.