71‑year‑old woman survives 22 km drift in crocodile‑infested Birupa River

71-year-old Keshi Dalai survived a two‑hour ordeal after the swollen Birupa River swept her nearly 22 km downstream through crocodile‑infested waters on Sunday morning. Dalai, a resident of Kalamatiya village in Bari block of Jajpur district, had gone to the river to relieve herself when dizziness caused her to lose footing and fall into the flood‑raised current. The fast‑moving water carried her from the Jajpur side past Balipatana in Kendrapara district, where locals first sighted her after almost two hours of repeated submersions. Rescuer Abhijit Sahu and a team launched a boat into the current, pulled the trembling elderly woman aboard and brought her to shore. Villagers pressed her stomach to expel water, rubbed her limbs, applied ointment and tried to warm her before calling an ambulance. Dalai was taken to Pattamundai hospital and later reported to be in good condition. She recounted feeling dizzy, falling, and then floating with the current until the boys rescued her. Sahu noted that the Birupa River is known for crocodiles and called her survival “extremely fortunate,” adding that her body had turned completely pale after the ordeal. The rescue follows a similar flood‑survival case a month earlier, when 35‑year‑old Sunanda Behera from Balipatana village in Arjunpur gram panchayat, Dhamnagar block, Bhadrak district, survived five days after being swept away, later rescued by the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force.