‘Scorpion Queen’ aims for record

A MALAYSIAN woman who is trying to reclaim a world record by living in a locked glass box with more than 6,000 scorpions has been stung once, is suffering a fever and scarcely sleeps because the creatures keep crawling over her.

Nur Malena Hassan, aged 27, said yesterday she has a “50/50 chance” of reaching her target of being cooped up with the poisonous arachnids for 36 consecutive days to set a new record for the longest stay in a room full of scorpions.

“I’m feeling so much tension,” Nur Malena said in a telephone interview from the specially built glass room she moved into on Saturday in a shopping mall in Kuantan, 160 miles north-east of Kuala Lumpur. “Nighttime is the worst,” she said. “I can only sleep two or three hours, since scorpions get so active at night, but I want to show that Malaysians are capable of world-class efforts.”