Odisha worker finds house teeming with over 100 baby cobras

NGO Snake Helpline said they found over 100 babies of monocled cobras and two common kraits. They also found 21 eggs and are looking for the mother cobra.

A daily worker in a village in coastal Odisha’s Bhadrak district who had built his thatched house recently out of his savings, was shocked to find it infested with hundreds of baby cobras on Friday.

Snakebite deaths, declared as state-specific disaster, account for about 37% of the total number of disaster deaths in the state. More than 1,700 people have died of snakebites in the last three years.(HT Photo)

Bijay Bhuyan’s daughter got the shock of her life when a baby monocled cobra came out from the corner of the drawing room in their home in Shyampur village and crawled over her leg.

The girl recoiled in horror and ran to her father. Though the snake did not bite, she passed out. As Bhuyan did a close inspection of his room, he was shocked to find a mound of termites in one corner with snakes crawling out of it.

“There were not just one or two. The mound seemed to be full of snakes. I was so scared that I thought I was standing in a snake pit,” said Bhuyan, who admitted to having never seen the termite mound in his house.

As local people called Snake Helpline, an NGO, its volunteers had a tough time in getting the baby snakes out of the mound.

“We found over 100 babies of monocled cobras and two common kraits. We also found 21 eggs from the mound. We are still looking for the mother cobra,” said Mirza Mohd Arif of Snake Helpline.

Bhuyan, meanwhile, is distressed over the developments. “How can I stay in the house? Who knows there may be more such snakes inside,” he said.

Special Relief Commissioner, Bishnupada Sethi said snakes kill more people in Odisha than floods, cyclones, drowning and fire mishaps.

Snakebite deaths, declared as state-specific disaster, account for about 37% of the total number of disaster deaths in the state. More than 1,700 people have died of snakebites in the last three years.

Of 1,716 snakebite deaths, 1,464 deaths took place during May to October. Coastal districts like Balasore, Ganjam and Bhadrak considered as flood-prone areas have reported more deaths as snakes living under the earth usually come out during the summer and monsoon.