Jakarta, Indonesia — A 23-foot-long python swallowed a woman in central Indonesia, a village official said.

Wa Tiba, 54, went missing on Jun 10 while checking on her vegetable garden on Muna island in Sulawesi province. When her family went to look for her in the garden, all that they found were her belongings.

After launching a search for the woman, the family found a 7-metre long snake with a bloated belly near the woman’s belongings.

Because villagers were suspicious that the snake had swallowed the woman, they killed it then carried it out of the garden.

After carrying it out of the garden, they cut the snake open, to find the victim’s body inside.

Videos circulating online show graphic footage of villagers slicing open the python’s carcass to reveal the woman’s body with her clothes intact.

Reticulated pythons, which are widespread in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, grab onto their prey with dozens of sharp curved teeth and then squeeze it to death before swallowing it whole.

The python in Sulawesi is believed to have been a reticulated python.

They can reach lengths of more than 10m (32ft) and are very powerful. They attack in an ambush, wrapping themselves around their prey and crushing it – squeezing tighter as the victim exhales.

They kill by suffocation or cardiac arrest within minutes.

Pythons swallow their food whole. Their jaws are connected by very flexible ligaments so they can stretch around large prey.

In 2002, a 10-year-old boy was reportedly swallowed by a rock python in South Africa.

And in March last year – also in Sulawesi – a farmer was swallowed by a 7m-long python. /TISG