crocodile scare motorists

A crocodile scare motorists during rush hour traffic on a road crowded tourist attractions in northern Australia on Thursday, when the animal emerges from the water line and then "hang around" to the road before cornered by a few street cleaners.

Reptiles are relatively small with a size of 1.5 meters that emerged from the water channel in the main street in Cairns, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, at about 08:00 local time, witnesses said.

"Animals are just out of the water channel, but did not chase us," said a street worker told the Cairns Post newspaper, as quoted by AFP, which monitored ANTARA here on Thursday night. "It was just a young animal` a `cocky, but may have scared some kid on the way to school," he added.

Some of the street cleaners who were not far and the police used a broom to prevent the animal approached the people who watch and finally the crocodile was captured by several officers and men who watched with a towel.

"The animal jumped off and began to whip his tail. Nobody knows what to do," said one eyewitness told ABC radio.

"There was a young man (road workers), a Queensland Parks and Wildlife officers and a policeman sitting in the back of the crocodile was in the main street of Cairns," he added.

On average two people die each year in Australia by saltwater crocodiles, which in the country known as "salties". Crocodiles can have up to seven meters long and weighs over a ton.