Posted on 01/11/2005 5:17:28 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
Ananova:
'Croc saved me from tsunami'
A Sri Lankan pensioner claims he was saved from the tsunami by a crocodile which nudged him back to shore.
Upali Gunasekera says the estuarine crocodile was one which regularly visited the garden of his house in Matara.
Mr Gunasekera was strolling in the garden, which overlooks a river and the sea, when the tsunami struck and was washed away.
He clutched a floating stool with one hand and a chair with the other and managed to stay afloat until a wave knocked them from his grip.
That was when he saw what he thought was a log moving towards him and clung on to it for dear life.
However he soon realised he was holding on to the crocodile, reports the Daily News.
He began to despair after seven hours in the water but felt the crocodile nudge his belly and push him to the river bank.
Funny, a few days ago, there was a story about someone surviving the tsunami by clinging onto a python that was swimming through the flood.
Oh sure.
Croc saved him for later...
What a load of croc.
What a crock
Cricky!
Rofl!!!
Where was the guy holding onto the Croc?
Could be the croc was enjoyed the groping.
"Get off my back!"
I don't think a python can eat while swimming and is probably relatively safe to hang on to.
I haven't read the book, but the author of the book Krakatoa said a German in Indonesia back in 1883 surfed or rode a croc to safety during the Tsunami.
Some crocs eat only fish. Eustarine crocs have been known to kill men and cattle. He is lucky.
Neither one of them were probably thinking of eating at the time:')
I would not be so quick to dismiss it. While it should be obvious that most crocs would eat you in a heartbeat, there are odd things that sometimes happen in nature sometimes.
Dogs and cats getting along, for example. :)
It could be that the stress of the whole situation had the croc drop his eating instincts. Beats me.
Or, he could have been full from eating somebody already.
Maybe a case of 'first survive'. . .eat later. . .
I dunno, but this sounds like a crock to me.
I live in the forest and the deer are pretty tame since I have no dog. Cats (dropped off by cruel people) moved onto my property and now the deer have adopted them and lick them just as they lick their own fawns. The cats kind of tolerate it.
It looks unbelievable. I should take pictures.
Krakatoa: The first modern tsunami
By Simon Winchester
Expert on the Krakatoa eruption
It is not the first time that a major seismic event in Indonesia has made front-page news around the world. In the 1880s, close to the epicentre of this Boxing Day's earthquake, huge waves crashed into countries all around the Indian Ocean. It was the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa.
Mount Merapi in Indonesia
Like earthquakes, volcanoes form at weak points in the Earth's crust
A German, the manager of a quarry, wrote his recollections of being swept away.
He was carried off the top of his three-storey office building at the summit of a 30m high hill.
The tsunami that roared in from the sea that Monday morning in 1883 must have been 40m high, at least.
He recalled being carried along on the wave's green unbroken crest, watching the jungle racing below, paralysed with fear.
Then suddenly to his right, he saw, being swept along beside him, an enormous crocodile.
With incredible presence-of-mind he decided the only way to save himself was to leap aboard the crocodile and try to ride to safety on its back.
How he did it is anyone's guess, but he insists he leapt on, dug his thumbs into the creature's eye-sockets to keep himself stable, and surfed on it for 3km.
The loudest sound ever made since mankind was around to note such things
He held on until the wave broke on a distant hill, depositing him and a presumably very irritated croc on the jungle floor.
He ran, survived, and wrote about the story.
[snip]
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