© Manoj Kumar
The first to be attacked was Sundar Bharadwaj, a 46-year-old farmer. "I was tending to my field when the animal attacked me," said Bharadwaj. He noticed the leopard crouching furtively amid tall grass, before it lunged at him. He slipped his arms between its jaws, grabbing them while trying to fend off its deadly bite. During the struggle, he sustained grievous injuries on his shoulder and chest. Villagers later admitted him in Sohna's Civil Hospital.
When Bharadwaj spoke to TOI, he had a blood-soaked sling across his shoulder. According to other villagers, the leopard was first noticed in the morning by two farmers, Sumeet (21) and Rajesh (23), as they were returning from their fields. In panic, the duo raised an alarm. Scared, the leopard leapt into the compound of the Government Primary School, Mandawar. Luckily, the school was closed. "When we approached the big cat in a group, it ran away and hid inside a mound of hay," Desh Raj, a 20-year-old villager, said.
Comment: Otto was the southernmost hurricane on record to hit Central America. It also set a new record for the latest hurricane to ever form in the Caribbean.
The National Meteorological Institute (IMN) reported that the eye of Hurricane Otto made landfall in Costa Rica at around 3:30 p.m. Thursday in the northern Alajuela canton of Los Chiles, making it the country's first hurricane landfall in recorded history (since 1851).