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Wild elephant killed by speeding train in Assam
Eyewitnesses said the other elephants in the herd managed to cross the track but one of them came under the train and it was dragged for around 100 metres
An adult male elephant has been killed in Assam’s Jorhat district after being hit by a speeding train. According to the forest officials, the incident happened near Mariani Railway Station at around 11.30pm on Saturday.
After the incident, locals called the forest officials and a team rushed to the spot. “We came with a team of doctors and they tried to provide treatment. But the injuries were severe and the elephant died on Sunday morning,” officials said.
Some onlookers said that a herd of elephants was crossing the railway track when the train came. “The other elephants managed to cross but one of them came under the train and it was dragged for around 100 metres,” a local said.
According to the Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), Sabyasachi De, the elephant was accidentally hit by Vivek Superfast Express train (Dibrugarh–Kanyakumari) coming from Dibrugarh on Saturday night and it died later.
De said that all the loco pilots are instructed to move the trains carefully on sensitive areas but where the incident happened on Saturday night was not a common elephant route.
“The incident happened near Mariani Railway Station and this is the first of such cases in this area. Elephant movements were not witnessed there in the past. We have instructed the loco pilots to take more careful measures while moving the train in that area from now,” De told HT on Sunday.
Last year, at least three such cases were recorded in Assam and several elephants died. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma last year said that they were planning to create some elephant corridors and the work was under progress.
On January 5, a 9-months-old elephant calf was found dead in a paddy field in Assam’s Boko area. Forest officials said that local residents noticed the carcass and informed them. The dead body was recovered and sent for postmortem later.
“We are trying to find the reason behind the death. Once the postmortem report comes, things will be clear,” said a forest official.
The human-elephant conflict in Assam is increasing and several locals were killed in elephant attacks last year. In two separate incidents on Saturday, two persons were killed in the state. According to the forest officials, a 55-year-old man was killed in Boko area while another death was reported from Goalpara district.
