A woman is missing and feared dead after she apparently was grabbed by a crocodile while swimming late at night at a beach in the Daintree national park in northern Australia.

The woman, widely named in reports as Cindy Waldron, 46, from New South Wales, was in waist-deep water with a friend at Thornton beach in Queensland on Sunday, emergency services said.

Neil Noble, from the Queensland ambulance service, told reporters: “They felt a nudge, and a large crocodile is alleged to have grabbed one of the ladies and pulled her into the water.” A search and rescue operation was due to continue into Tuesday.

The other woman in the water raised the alarm, said senior constable Russell Parker, from Queensland police. “Her 47-year-old friend tried to grab her and drag her to safety and she just wasn’t able to do that,” he added. “It would be very, very distressing for her.”

The women had been walking along the beach and decided to go for a swim, Parker said, and had apparently been unaware of the potential dangers. Rivers and estuaries in the area have sometimes large and dangerous saltwater crocodiles, which often attack animals, and occasionally humans. There are regular signs warning people to keep away from the water, especially at night.

A five-metre crocodile had been seen in the area recently, according to media reports, though there was no indication that this was the animal connected to the attack.

Warren Entsch, the local member of the federal parliament, said he hoped the incident would not be the cause of a “vendetta” against crocodiles in the area. “You can’t legislate against human stupidity,” Entsch said on Monday. “This is a tragedy but it was avoidable. There are warning signs everywhere up there.”

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Entsch, the Liberal National MP for the northern Queensland electorate of Leichhardt, said Thornton beach was next to a creek where tourism operators ran crocodile-spotting tours, and the women would have seen the plentiful warning signs throughout the Daintree region.



“You can only get there by ferry, and there are signs there saying watch out for the bloody crocodiles,” he said. “If you go in swimming at 10 o’clock at night, you’re going to get consumed.”

He continued: “Let’s not start vendettas. It’s hard enough for some families to make a quid up there in the Daintree, showcasing crocs in their environment. People have to have some level of responsibility for their own actions.”