A heavily pregnant woman was killed by a crocodile while cooking lunch at her flooded home in Indonesia.

Munirah, 28, was standing in the swamped kitchen when the river leviathan sank its fangs into her leg in North Kalimantan on May 27.

The mother-to-be screamed as the beast then tried to thrash her in a powerful death roll.

Hearing her pained cries, Munirah's sister Ana Maria rushed over and found the pregnant woman holding onto a tree branch.

She left to find a weapon with which to beat the huge croc, but it had already dragged Munirah into the water by the time she returned.

Villagers searched along the Mambulu River. Footage shows several men firing a shotgun at the predator, but it retreated into the muddy deluge.

Around 34 minutes later, they found a lifeless Munirah body floating in the flood.

Local police chief AKP Supriadi said: 'The victim died after being attacked by a crocodile. She was dragged away from her kitchen and drowned to death.

'She couldn't be saved. She was eight months pregnant and did not have the strength to fight off the crocodile.

'The crocodile released her, but she was already dead when her body surfaced.'

The local disaster response agency (BPBD) confirmed the incident.

Hasanuddin, head of the BPBD Rescue Division in Nunukan Regency, said: 'Yes, we received the report. The official documentation will be included in our daily report at 6:00 pm'.

Munirah's residence was a stilt home flooded after the nearby Mambulu River burst its banks following heavy rain.

Authorities suspect that the flood has caused crocodiles to move closer to human settlements, increasing the risk of attacks. Residents have been warned to stay vigilant, especially when carrying out activities near rivers or flood-prone zones.

The Indonesian archipelago is home to 14 types of crocs - with a large population of extremely large and violent estuarine crocodiles that flourish in the region's climate.

Conservationists believe that crocodiles have been driven further inland closer to villages due to overfishing reducing the crocodiles' natural food supplies combined with habitat loss from the development of coastal areas into farms.

Widespread tin mining has also caused villagers to encroach on the crocodiles' natural habitats, pushing the creatures closer toward people's homes.

With uneducated locals in the developing country still using rivers for bathing and primitive fishing, the deadly combination of factors has led to rising numbers of crocodile attacks.