The picture on the first post is wrong. Chinese eels don't look like that at all, and certainly don't bite.
Don't think so. They need to breathe and they move very well, which may explain why the rectum is punctured. I kept these things for years so I know. Such professional reporter.
The picture from the article wasn't linkable, so I grabbed the first eel on google images. Not like it was meant to be accurate, or that anybody should give a crap. And why the snide comment about the reporter? Sea creature can mean anything that lives in the water. Doesn't have to mean "oceananic". Here's another story. http://shanghaiist.com/2010/05/01/man_in_sichuan_dies_after_friends_i.php
To be honest I've never had an eel in my rectum. A glass bottle of Coca Cola and a Pez dispenser quite possibly.
This is quiet an eeluminating story. Contrary to popular beelief, this man didnt die of gnawed out bowels, rather he died in a great deel of pain.