Tin miner Heri, 25, was rinsing himself in the Berang River after collecting the precious metal in Belitung Regency in the Bangka Belitung Islands at around 5:30pm on October 15
A huge crocodile snatched and killed a tin miner while he was washing his feet in a river in Indonesia – as his horrified father-in-law watched on.
Heri, 25, was rinsing himself in the Berang River after collecting the precious metal in Belitung Regency in the Bangka Belitung Islands at around 5.30pm on October 15. However, a huge crocodile was said to have snatched him from the banks and dragged him into the middle of the river.
Oka Astawa, head of the Pangkalpinang City search and rescue agency (Basarnas), said the croc attack was witnessed by the Heri’s father-in-law, who was standing a few feet away at the time. The older man reportedly ran back to the village to ask for help from the residents.
However, the villagers called the Pangkalpinang Basarnas rescue team as their four-hour search yielded no results. The rescue team deployed a thermal drone to assist in the operation. They finally found Heri drifting lifeless in the river, some 80 feet from where he was mauled, on Wednesday morning, October 16.
Oka said in a statement: ‘When the victim was found, his body was intact. The joint search and rescue team immediately retrieved the body and took it directly to the funeral home to be handed over to his family.”
He also warned residents to be careful around lakes and rivers, which are natural habitats of deadly predators such as crocodiles. The Indonesian archipelago is home to 14 types of crocs – with a large population of extremely large and violent estuarine crocodiles that flourish in the region’s climate.
Conservationists believe that crocodiles have been driven further inland closer to villages due to overfishing reducing the crocodiles’ natural food supplies combined with habitat loss from the development of coastal areas into farms. With uneducated locals in the developing country still using rivers for bathing and primitive fishing, the deadly combination of factors has led to rising numbers of crocodile attacks.
