City pays €100,000 to find dead cobra

Authorities in the German city of Muelheim spent €100,000 (Dh495,407) on a three week mission to recover a missing snake – only to discover it had died. "We had to do everything in our power to find this cobra," said Volker Wiebels, spokesman for the city council. After the highly poisonous monocled cobra escaped from its container last month, fire services cleared the entire apartment block, removed all the furniture and gutted the owner's flat. They then sealed all the doors and windows of the building, so the 30cm-long reptile could not get out, and set large sticky traps to catch it, Wiebels said. Officials finally found the snake lying dead in the rooftop apartment of its 19-year-old owner. By that time the cost of the operation had ballooned to €100,000. Taxpayers are probably on the hook for €40,000, because an escaped snake is considered a public hazard. The rest falls on the owner, who paid €70 for the snake.