QUIRKY WORLD ... Munching mice thwart fix for traffic chaos in Brussels

BELGIUM:  As if the EU does not have enough crises, now traffic chaos in its congested capital Brussels is being blamed on... hungry mice.

The city is struggling to cope with repeated closures of key road tunnels caused by crumbling concrete and years of decay. Now the Belgian capital’s regional parliament has been told repairs are being held up because original construction plans have been destroyed — apparently eaten by rodents.

The tunnels provide vital arteries across what is often described as Europe’s most traffic-congested city. But for decades the plans for their construction were stored in the pillars under a motorway bridge, for want of space elsewhere. “They may have been eaten by mice,” the former head of the city’s infrastructure agency said.