An elderly woman was terrified after a giant monitor lizard raided her shop.

Nittaya Promkaew, 68, was closing up for the night when the 5ft long reptile ran in through the front door in Chachoengsao, central Thailand, on April 18 at 7.30pm.

The grandmother screamed for help and neighbours rushed to the shop to see what had happened.

Emergency services arrived a short time later and found the beast rummaging through packets of dried noodles.

They dragged it into the open where it was tied up and stuffed into a sack to be released into the wild.

Nittaya said: ‘’I saw the monitor lizard and almost had a heart attack. It was so big.

‘’I jumped out of the way in case it attacked me. My friends tried to catch it but it ran away and looked through the tins and packets on the shelves.’’