Crocodile Mauls Indonesian Plantation Worker to Death
A crocodile attacked and killed a woman working on a palm oil plantation in central Indonesia, local police reported. The victim, a 44-year-old woman, was attacked while working with a colleague in West Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo. The crocodile chased the pair, biting the woman on her left hand and dragging her into a ditch.
Her colleague attempted to rescue her but was unable to overpower the crocodile. He then ran to alert the authorities in the coastal district of Ketapang. After a 90-minute search, police recovered the woman’s body, still gripped by the crocodile, not far from the site of the attack. The animal released her body as rescuers approached.
Indonesia is home to several crocodile species that are known to regularly attack humans. Borneo, which is divided between Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia, is rich in rainforests that shelter a variety of rare wildlife. However, the expansion of palm oil plantations and logging projects in the region has raised concerns about the destruction of natural habitats.
This attack follows a similar incident in August when a 54-year-old woman was killed by a crocodile while bathing in a river on Indonesia’s Maluku islands. In 2018, a violent retaliation occurred in Indonesia’s Papua region when a local man was killed by a crocodile, leading to nearly 300 crocodiles being slaughtered by locals in revenge.
