MILLIONS of tiny bugs caused chaos on Southend’s seafront by “attacking” visitors in huge swarms.

The storm flies, also known as “thunderbugs”, which invaded the seafront this week, left families choking on the insects and pulling them out of ears and noses.

As visitors walked among the swarms along the promenade, they were seen covering up their faces to escape the pests.

Monkeys at the SeaLife Adventure in Eastern Esplanade, Southend, were even spotted eating the bugs as they flew at them in their enclosure.

READ MORE:

Hannah Faulkner-Hatt, 40, visited the seafront on Monday with her three children.

She said: “The air was full of them.

“You couldn’t see past them.

“It was a nightmare, the kids weren’t best pleased when we were being attacked by them.

“We were trying to get back to the car as fast as possible.

“They were everywhere.

“My partner was choking on one in the car.

“They were flying up our noses and in our ears, it was horrible.

“We had to brush everyone off before we got into the car.

“Everyone was talking about it along the seafront.

“The monkeys were having a lovely time, they had plenty of bugs to choose from.”

The bugs are usually attracted to brightly coloured clothing.

It is believed some of the insects were storm flies, while some were an unknown, green coloured larvae.

The black storm flies were also seen swarming cars and car windows.

Carole Mulroney, Lib Dem Southend councillor in charge of the environment, culture, tourism and planning, said: “We get this once a year, but it’s usually flying ants.

“The little black ones are almost definitely storm flies.

“It usually means there’s a sign of a storm coming, but we did have rain the day before.”

The flies have also been known to invade homes and gardens before a storm.

It follows predictions earlier this month of so-called “flying ant day” where Britain was invaded by swarms of the creatures, which were tracked by the Met Office on a weather map.