Bhubaneswar, Sept. 27 -- When 71-year-old Keshi Dalai went to the Birupa river on Sunday morning, she did not know that she would spend the next two hours fighting for her life in the crocodile-infested river. A moment of dizziness sent her into the swollen waters, beginning an ordeal that carried her nearly 22 kilometres downstream through one of the state's crocodile-inhabited rivers.

The old woman from Kalamatiya village in Jajpur district's Bari block had gone to the Birupa river to relieve herself when she lost her footing. The river, swollen by flooding, carried her into a powerful current.

By the time local residents spotted her at Balipatana in Kendrapara district, Dalai had spent nearly two hours in the water, repeatedly sinkin...