Missing Indonesian woman found swallowed by 22-foot python

54-year-old woman went missing while collecting rubber on a plantation near her home

INDONESIA:

An elderly woman reported missing was found swallowed alive by a 22-foot python in Indonesia’s Jambi province, on the western island of Sumatra, Fox News reported on Tuesday.

The 54-year-old woman, identified as Jahrah, went missing while collecting rubber on a plantation near her home.

Family members informed emergency services of the woman’s disappearance and a search was later launched.

The search party then found a reticulated python with a swollen stomach, which was slit open by villagers.

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A graphic clip and pictures of the incident show how residents cut open the large snake and found, what officials say, was the body of the missing woman.

"Residents killed the snake and dissected its stomach contents. Everyone was astonished. It turned out that the woman we were looking for was in the snake's stomach," said Anto, the head of the local village where the woman lived.

However, nobody saw the “monster” snake eating the 54-year-old alive.

A similar incident took place in March 2017, when 25-year-old Indonesian farmer had been discovered inside the belly of a giant python after the swollen snake was caught near where the man vanished while harvesting his crops on the eastern island of Sulawesi.

In the same year, a giant python attacked an Indonesian man, nearly severing his arm, before hungry villagers chopped up the reptile and ate it, a police chief said.

Security guard Robert Nababan crossed paths with the giant creature while patrolling an oil palm plantation in the remote Batang Gansal subdistrict of Sumatra island.

"The python was 7.8 metres long (25.6 feet), it was unbelievably huge," local police chief Sutarja, who like many Indonesians only has one name, told AFP.

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Sutarja said the 37-year-old Nababan, who sometimes liked to eat snake, tried to catch the giant python and stuff it in a gunny sack. But the huge serpent fought back and bit him on his left arm, nearly severing it from his body.

Nababan was then rushed to a hospital in a neighbouring town for treatment. The police chief said the intervention of another security guard and several local residents, one of whom hit the snake with a log, helped to save the man's life.

Hungry locals later killed the snake and displayed its body in the village before dicing it up, frying it and feasting on it. Giant python, which is regularly top 20 feet in length, are commonly found in Indonesia and the Philippines.