Grandmother swallowed whole by giant python in Indonesia

(Representational image)

A 54-year-old Indonesian grandmother was eaten alive by a massive 22-foot python while out for work on a rubber plantation in Jambi province, according to reports.

The woman, identified only as Jahrah, had gone out on Sunday morning. When she did not return home by afternoon, her husband went out in search of her.

More people joined him. Two days later, they found a snake with a bloated stomach in a forest. Suspecting it to have swallowed her, they cut its stomach, The Washington Post reported.

There, the woman's remains were lying undigested.  A local village leader said the woman would have slowly suffocated, The Telegraph reported

Experts said the woman was likely attacked by a constrictor

"What they do is coil their body around you," conservationist Nathan Rusli told The Washington Post. "You breathe in and your body gets smaller, it tightens its grip, and you can’t breathe out."

He added that the flexible jaws of snakes allowed them to devour a prey that is even bigger than their head.

Instances of pythons swallowing humans are rare. But in Indonesia, they have happened at least two other times.

In 2017, a farmer had been eaten alive by a python in Salubiro, a village in Indonesia's Sulawesi island, The Guardian reported.

The next year, a similar attack took place on the island of Muna.