A giant 10ft-long king cobra was found hiding behind a cabinet next to an old lady's bed in Thailand.

The venomous reptile was spotted after the pensioner's pet dogs started barking at something on the corner of their house in Chanthaburi province on March 15.

Lamyai Wonghong, 81, asked his son to check what had upset the dogs and found the golden-brown tail of the deadly snake.

They tried to scare the snake away with a stick but it appeared ready to attack because the dogs were threatening it so they rushed out of the property instead.

The terrified old woman said: The snake did not expand its hood at first so we thought it was just a regular non-venomous snake.

'When we realised it was a king cobra, I told my son to just forget about it and rush out of the house with me. I was still shaking when the rescuers came.'

The old woman and her son called their neighbours for help who contacted the animal rescuers to assist them in evacuating the snake.

The snake tried to attack the rescue volunteers several times before they were able to grab it by the tail while one of them distract it in front.

It was pulled out of the house after almost an hour and was lured inside a plastic box to be released later in the wild away from the houses.