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SYDNEY, March 16, 2009 (AFP) - A 12-year-old girl is feared to have been taken by a crocodile after she vanished while swimming with friends in a swampy creek in northern Australia, police said Monday.
Police divers scoured an area known as Black Jungle Swamp, east of the northern city of Darwin, after witnesses said they saw a crocodile's tail slap the water near the girl seconds before she disappeared at about 5:30 pm (0800 GMT) on Sunday.
"One of the children ... got into difficulty in the water and as the others swam towards her, one of them (saw) what they believed to be a crocodile tail slap the water near the girl," Superintendent Rob Farmer said.
"She's then gone under the surface and was not seen again," Farmer told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The youngster failed to re-emerge after she came up briefly with a distressed look on her face when one of her three friends threw her a log.
The girl's friends ran to a nearby house and raised the alarm. Police and emergency services cordoned off the area and launched a search.
The hunt in the marshy and difficult terrain was called off after dark for safety reasons and was resumed early Monday.
An average of two people a year are killed in Australia by saltwater crocodiles, which can grow up to seven metres (23 feet) long and weigh more than a tonne.
The Northern Territory, of which Darwin is the capital, has a large crocodile population that thrives in the vast network of rivers and lakes that criss-cross the area.
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