Footage shows the supermarket where a monitor lizard ran inside and climbed all over the shelves.

The 6ft long reptile emerged from a nearby canal and ran into the 7-Eleven store sparking panic on Tuesday afternoon (April 6) in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand.

Staff and customers hid behind the counter while the beast climbed onto shelves and tossed several cartons of milk onto the ground.

A worried shop assistant called the police who arrived with reptile handlers to snare the ferocious monitor lizard shortly after lunchtime.

Speaking today, one of the shop assistants said they reptile stayed in the shop for one HOUR before reptile handlers arrived and chased it away.

The employee – who said they had been stopped by the chain owner from playing CCTV of the incident – said: ‘The monitor lizard stayed on the shelf for an hour. The rescue team arrived and chased it away. But they didn’t catch it, it just ran away into the bushes.

‘I’ve never seen a monitor lizard that big in my life, so it was a surprise for one to come in the shop. There’s a forest behind the store so we think it came from there.

‘Lots of news stations have been calling the shop to ask for CCTV but we can’t open the system without the owner

Shocked customer Narumpa Tangsin, who recorded a video of the creature, said: ‘I only stopped at the shop to buy some food and then saw the huge monitor lizard inside. I wanted to buy a drink but the animal was too close to the drinks aisle.

‘They’re dangerous animals, especially when they’re angry, so I stayed back and recorded it on my phone. I guess that shops have everything, even for lizards.’

The rescue team arrived at the shop on the outskirts of the capital Bangkok and dragged the monitor lizard out of the store before ushering it away into nearby undergrowth.

Despite its rampage through the grocery shop, the monitor lizard had not managed to take any food. The unusually large creature is believed to have struggled to find food outside, following months of dry weather with little rain.

Asian water monitor lizards live in canals and ponds in large cities in Thailand where they feed on fish, snakes, frogs and scraps of food left by humans.

They are aggressive when threatened and have a mildly venomous bite which sometimes carries harmful bacteria.