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A woman was found dead inside the belly of a snake after it swallowed her whole in central Indonesia, police said Wednesday, the second python killing in the province in a month.

Siriati, 36, had gone missing after she left her house Tuesday morning to buy medicine for her sick child, police said, prompting relatives to launch a search.

Her husband Adiansa, 30, found her slippers and pants on the ground about 500 metres (yards) from their house in Siteba village, South Sulawesi province.

"Shortly after that, he spotted a snake, about 10 metres from the path. The snake was still alive," local police chief Idul, who like many Indonesians has one name, told AFP.

Village secretary Iyang told AFP that Adiansa became suspicious after he noticed the python's "very large" belly. He called the villagers to help cut open its stomach, where they found her body.

Such incidents are considered extremely rare, but several people have been swallowed by pythons in recent years.

A woman was found dead last month inside the belly of a reticulated python in another district of South Sulawesi.

Last year residents in the province killed an eight-metre python, which was found strangling and eating one of the farmers in a village.

A 54-year-old woman was found dead in 2018 inside a seven-metre python in Southeast Sulawesi's Muna town.

And the year before, a farmer in West Sulawesi went missing before being found being swallowed by a four-metre python at a palm oil plantation.

AFP

Woman found dead swallowed by python in Indonesia