This news story sounds like a bad sequel to the movie Snakes on Plane.

Ship turned away after spiders started ‘pouring’ from cargo hold

A South Korean cargo ship had to be turned away last week after an infestation of spiders was discovered in the cargo hold.

Customs officials discovered the infestation in the MV Altavia’s cargo after the South Korean ship docked in Guam, one of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean.

Thousands of spiders, some with bodies as big as 10 pence pieces, started pouring out of the ship’s crates as Guam’s Port Authority workers began moving the containers off the boat onto the dock, last Wednesday.

The shipment had been destined for a US military base construction site on the island for 8,000 US Marines.

The ship was told to leave the port and moor off shore while officials investigated if the species was venomous or posed any danger, Guam’s agriculture officials said.

It was then turned away completely two days later and told to return home with the spiders still on board.

“It was because of the quantity,” Joseph Torres, director of Guam’s Department of Agriculture told US military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

“There’s only two animals that curl my skin,” Mr Torres said. “Spiders and snakes.”

The high number and size of the spiders forced us to turn the ship away completely, Mr Torres added.

He said the species was not normally found on Guam and there was concern that it could damage the island’s environment.