Alligators blamed for two more deaths in Florida

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., May 15 (Reuters) Florida wildlife officials today hunted for alligators that may have killed two people over the weekend, possibly bringing to three the number of alligator-related deaths in the southern US state in a single week.

A woman's body with both arms missing was found in a lake north of St Petersburg yesterday morning, officials said.

The Pinellas County Medical Examiner's office said an alligator played some part in the 43-year-old woman's death but the official cause of death would not be determined for several weeks.

The people who found the body said they saw something floating in the lake on Friday but did not check on it until yesterday. The St Petersburg Times newspaper said drugs were found at the scene.

Also yesterday, a 23-year old woman was believed to have been killed by an alligator while swimming in Lake George near Ocala in central Florida.

The two attacks followed the killing of a 28-year-old woman by an alligator near Fort Lauderdale while she was jogging along a bicycle path by a canal.

Wildlife officers and commercial trappers captured the killer alligator over the weekend.

Alligators are more active than usual at this time of the year because it is their mating season.

But alligator attacks on humans are rare. Prior to the latest three, there had only been 18 fatal alligator attacks in Florida since 1948. There are an estimated one million alligators in the state.

REUTERS SHB HS2113