WATCH: Swarms of crabs run loose on U.K. metro

Nearly 4 dozen crabs were caught on camera running loose on a subway platform in Gateshead, U.K. last Thursday.

 No, it wasn’t a biblical plague.

Andrew Desborough, who works close by, was on the subway platform when he saw them: Fist-sized grey-blue crabs scuttling to get away or flipped over onto their backs.

Video he shot shows cleaners trying to round up the crabs, kicking them out of the subway car.

Desborough claims several fell through the gap, and that the workers later kicked several surviving crabs onto the tracks.

“I can’t imagine many crabs would have survived,” he told the Shields Gazette. “The next train would have squashed most of them.”

It isn’t clear how the crustaceans got there. Spokespeople for the Tyne and Wear Metro said a passenger was carrying the crustaceans in a bag that broke. The passenger left Gateshead station without picking up the crabs, causing a delay in the system.

Many were angry about the treatment of the sea creatures.

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The metro’s cleaning contractor released a statement about the crabby incident on Monday.

“Sadly, many of the crustaceans ended up on the tracks, but the surviving ones took a VIP ride in the back of a Churchill Patrol Vehicle to the Blue Reef Aquariuam at Tynemouth where they are now being looked after.”

Rosie Wiggins, marketing manager at the aquarium, confirmed to Global News that there were five survivors.