Australian crocodile caught in clean sweep

A crocodile frightened peak hour motorists on a busy street in Australia's tourist north Thursday, slithering out of a drain into traffic before it was cornered by street sweepers. The relatively small 1.5-metre reptile emerged from the drain on a main street in Cairns, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, around 8am, witnesses said. "It just came out of the drain, but it didn't go for us," a road worker told the Cairns Post newspaper. "It's only a whippersnapper, but it probably would have scared a few kids on the way to school," he added. Nearby street sweepers and police used brooms to keep the animal at bay from thronging onlookers and it was eventually captured by rangers and a few burly onlookers with the help of a towel. "It jumped up and its tail started thrashing. No-one knew what to do," one witness told ABC Radio. "You had a (roadworks) bloke, a Queensland Parks and Wildlife ranger and a police officer sitting on the back of this crocodile on the main street of Cairns," he added. An average of two people are killed each year in Australia by saltwater crocodiles, known locally as "salties", which can grow up to seven metres (23 feet) long and weigh more than a tonne.