Tumbleweed invasion! Rolling bush from Western flicks morphs into plague

Like a scene out a B-grade horror movie, persistent drought in a small US town has spawned monstrous tumbleweeds that have attacked the town and trapped people inside.

Forty-eight hours after a recent windstorm blew a wall of tumbleweeds into his community on the high plains of Colorado, Robert McClintock and his neighbours were still working to clear away heaps of the spiny plant. “It was crazy. Some piles were more than 3m high,” said McClintock, 38, as he and other residents in the town of Fountain, 24km southeast of Colorado Springs, toiled to rake up and bag stacks of the thorny weed in the subdivision.