A man has been killed by a crocodile while trying to cross a river near the Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, police say.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The 47-year-old man was wading across Cahills Crossing, a causeway across the East Alligator River, with two women when he disappeared under the water about 4pm on Thursday.
The women raised the alarm and police and park rangers launched several boats to search for the man, who is believed to be from a nearby community. His body was found about two kilometres downstream.
Superintendent Bob Harrison, from Northern Territory Police, said the man was killed by a 3.5-metre crocodile.
The East Alligator River at Cahills Crossing is infested with saltwater crocodiles, and Superintendent Harrison said signs had been erected at the spot warning people not to enter the water.
"Unfortunately they did [enter the water], and this was the result," he told Sky News.
The crocodile was shot and killed, police said.
The crossing, on the eastern edge of the Kakadu National Park, becomes submerged with the tides and is often unpassable during the wet season, from November to April.
Rangers last year conducted a survey of the East Alligator River and counted 120 crocodiles in a six-kilometre stretch south of Cahills Crossing.
Last month, seven people were rescued from the roof of their four-wheel-drive after it stalled on the crossing and was partially washed into the river.
The seven people in the vehicle, aged 16 to 46, climbed onto the roof and bonnet, where they waited for two hours before a passerby heard their calls for help.
Kakadu Park Rangers rescued the group by boat after dark. Remarkably, no one was injured.
In September, a woman was filmed at the same crossing trying to shoo away a large crocodile by clapping one of her thongs against her hand. She had a small dog with her at the time.
"We could have had a death there that day," Lyndon Anlezark, who filmed the incident, told the ABC at the time.
"You don't go near the crossing with small children especially, and definitely not with animals at all."
The last death at the crossing was in 1987, when Kerry McLoughlin was decapitated by a 5.1-metre crocodile. The 40-year-old Jabiru man was out fishing with his son when he stumbled and fell off the causeway.
He threw a beer can at the animal but it seized him as he scrambled to escape up the riverbank
