15,000 crocodiles escape from South African farm

Updated


15,000 crocodiles escape from farm
15,000 crocodiles escape from farm


Police and army soldiers have joined a hunt for 15,000 crocodiles which have escaped from a reptile farm in South Africa.

The crocs - which grow to up to 16ft long - escaped during heavy flooding at the Rakwena Crocodile farm, a tourist site near the border of Botswana.

According to local newspaperBeeld, they were washed into the Limpopo river and dispersed. One crocodile appeared as far as 70 miles away, on a school playing field.

Many of the reptiles have been captured by local farmers and locals but the farm says that more than half remain at large.

According to The Guardian, the flood gates at the farm were opened on Sunday because of fears that the rising waters would crush the reptiles. But this allowed them to escape into the Limpopo, one of South Africa's biggest rivers.

Speaking to Beeld, Zane Langham, the son in law of the farm's owner, said: 'Before there were only a few crocodiles in the Limpopo River. Now there are plenty."

He described how local residents had climbed onto the roof of a garage to escape the rising floods. He arrived on his motorboat to find the crocodiles circling them.

The BBC reports that the South African air force is being used to rescue people trapped by the floods in remote settlements.


Fifteen Thousand Crocodiles Escape from Farm
Fifteen Thousand Crocodiles Escape from Farm




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