"Rip Van Winkle" tortoise ?

I very much doubt this story. I would have thought that it would have starved in that time.

Unlikely.

Nah, dehydration would have got it never mind starvation. We got one a few years ago that had been abandoned in a flat for a few weeks after some renters fled and sadly that didn't survive. ☹️

Reading the story they don't imply that it hibernated for 30 years, but that it might have survived eating larvae, etc. in the attic.

I swear I've read this before somewhere, I've never had a tortoise, so the theory of it surviving eating termites might be plausible if there were enough of them... But rather dubious over a 30 year period.