India, Aug. 19 -- In a remarkable tale of survival, a man who was swept away by the floodwaters of the Pochara River in Odisha's Bhadrak district was rescued after spending five days clinging to a palm tree.

Sunanda Behera, a resident of Balipatana village in Dhamnagar block, went missing after being swept away by the surging floodwaters. Villagers searched for him for several days, but there was no sign of him.

Hope of finding him alive had begun to fade when villagers travelling by boat through the Bajapati field area spotted a man clinging to a palm tree in the middle of the floodwaters. They soon realised it was Behera and alerted the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF).

An ODRAF team reached the spot and carried out a diffi...