30-foot python eats woman who went out to get medicines for son. Husband found her legs sticking out of...

This is the second such snake-swallowing incident in the region in a month. (Representational image: Unsplash)

A 36-year-old Indonesian woman, who had gone missing after she stepped out to buy medicines for her sick child on July 2, was swallowed by a python.

When the woman did not return after going out to fetch some medicines, her relatives launched a search. Her husband Adiansa, 30, was the first to spot her slippers and pants lying on the ground about 500 metres from their home in Siteba village located in the South Sulawesi province, news agency AFP reported. According to The Sun, Adiansa also saw her legs sticking out of the python's mouth.

“Shortly after that, he spotted a snake about 10 metres from the path. The snake was still alive,” local police chief Idul told the news agency. The snake apparently attacked Siriati as she walked through the forest and crushed her to death by constriction before swallowing her.

According to village secretary Iyang, Adiansa and called on other villagers to help him cut open its stomach.

When they did so, they found the missing woman’s body; she was swallowed whole by the python, making it the second python killing in the province in a month.

Although such incidents are supposed to be rare, last month, another woman was found dead inside the stomach of a reticulated python in another district of South Sulawesi.

A year ago, residents of the same province had killed an eight-metre-long python after it strangled and ate one of the farmers in a village.

Prior to that, in 2018, a 54-year-old woman was found dead inside a seven-metre-long python in Southeast Sulawesi's Muna town. And the year before that, a farmer in West Sulawesi went missing before being found being swallowed by a four-metre-long python at a palm oil plantation.