Chinese surgeons operated on a man to remove two of his three tongues so that he can eat and speak normally for the first time in 20 years, Xinhua news agency said. Xian Shihua, a 32-year-old farmer from the southwestern province of Sichuan, was born with one tongue, but a second, smaller one grew when he was five years old, and later a third, the official agency said.

"His largest tongue was 13 inches long, 6 inches wide, and 4.4 inches thick, while the other two were 3.6 inches long and of varying widths and thickness," the report added. The operation, carried out at the Southwest Military Hospital in Chongqing, enabled Xian to speak normally to family and friends and to go off the liquid diet that he had subsisted on since childhood.

(c) Reuters