Dutch town ravaged after girl’s Facebook birthday invitation goes viral

A young Dutch girl's birthday celebration went strangely wrong Friday as thousands of inebriated revelers showed up at her door.

The mayhem started with an innocent invitation to friends and family on Facebook to celebrate her 16th birthday at her home in the tiny Dutch town Haren, 115 miles north of Amsterdam.

Merthe Weusthuis sent the invitations two weeks before via Facebook but forgot to mark the event as private, said the Telegraph. 

The invitation was essentially hacked and fired round the country and around the world.

It even had it's own code name ,"Project X Haren," which was seen by 240,000 people with 30,000 confirming their attendance, the Associated Press reported.

Weusthuis was lucky – only 5000 of those actually showed up. 

Most were looking for a good time, while others were looking for a fight.

Reports remain sketchy but at some point the throng got rowdy and chaos ensued.

Riot police were sent in, fires were set around town and a sweet 16 turned bitter.

In all, six people were hurt and 34 arrested by police, the New York Times said.

“Scum ran amok in our town,” said Rob Bats, mayor of Haren, reported the Associated Press.

“An innocent invitation on Facebook for a party led to serious rioting, destruction, plundering, arson and injuries in the middle of Haren."

The town was left with fires and huge amounts of debris, inspiring a rival Facebook page Saturday called "Clean Project X Haren."