The Earth lost almost 1/6th of it's population today following a disaster involving former Hollywood heart-throb Richard Gere.
The star, who famously made a fool of himself a number of months back with Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, was on a fact-finding mission to Bombay when all hell broke loose. Gere went wild after a night of hard partying with a sacred cow and embarked on a spree of mayhem unseen since the day's of Nazi handbag-lover Adolf Hitler.
"Mister Gere pulled down his pants, such was his great merriment", gasped one lucky eyewitness who managed to flee the country in a chartered helicopter with just seconds to spare, "and the entire country and all it's beautiful peoples and interesting heritage and customs, vanished up his bottom, Whoosh, just like that".
Of all Gere's pranks - people may remember him from the time he electrocuted a bus-load of school kids with an electric chair and claimed he was 'researching a role' - this is the most 'troubling'.
"I apologise profusely", said Gere through an interpreter earlier today, "I don't know what I was thinking. I was out of my mind with joy at being welcomed to this once amazingly diverse nation.
"I was sure that when they said that India was the 'sub-continent', that they would have a replacement for it on the bench."
"Please accept my sincere apologies and a box-set of DVD's of my favorite movies, such a s Pretty Woman, An Officer and A Gentleman and The Mothman Prophesy".
The nation of India now joins a hamster inside Gere's posterior.
"I don't know how or why he did such a terrible thing", said Ravjesh Krampakur, one of the last surviving Indians in the world, "who could have thought that he was capable of such madness?"
Esteemed surgeons from all across the globe have declined to operate on Gere for fear that they too may get too close and get sucked into the abyss.
