Rudrapur: An elephant herd blocked rail traffic in Udham Singh Nagar district on Wednesday after two pachyderms — a female and its male offspring — were run over by a train on the Lalkuan-Kashipur route in the morning. The area falls within the Peepal Parao forest range.
While the railway authorities had to arrange for buses to send passengers to their destination, forest officials had to wait for the enraged herd to calm down before driving them back to the forest.
“We rushed to the spot and saw an adult and a baby elephant lying dead on the railway tracks. The elephant herd there was very angry. We waited for a while and then drove them away from the tracks,” said Harish Pandey, ranger, Peepal Parao forest range under Terai-Central Forest division in Kumaon.
Pandey said the train was on its way to Ramnagar from Lalkuan around 5am on Wednesday. “When it reached the Peepal Parao forest range, 4km away from the SIDCUL halt, a herd of elephants was crossing the track. The speeding train hit both elephants and they died on the spot. After this, the rest of the elephants in the herd surrounded the carcasses, resulting in a blockade of rail traffic”, he said.
Railway officials brought the train back to the SIDCUL halt and arranged for buses to Bazpur, Kashipur, and Ramnagar to send the passengers to their destinations and also halted the Kashipur-Kasganj train heading towards Lalkuan at Gularbhoj and sent it back to Kashipur. Some other trains were also cancelled on this route until noon.
{{/usCountry}}Railway officials brought the train back to the SIDCUL halt and arranged for buses to Bazpur, Kashipur, and Ramnagar to send the passengers to their destinations and also halted the Kashipur-Kasganj train heading towards Lalkuan at Gularbhoj and sent it back to Kashipur. Some other trains were also cancelled on this route until noon.
{{/usCountry}}“The female elephant was around 40 years old while her baby was two to three months old. We informed our seniors and removed the carcasses from the tracks,” said Pandey.
Pandey said the forest department would write to the railway authorities, asking them to drive trains at slower speeds in the forested stretch to avoid these incidents in the future.
AG Ansari, a Kumaon-based wildlife activist, blamed “human error” for the incident. “An early warning system is needed to avoid such incidents in the future. The forest department should take the initiative in this regard and the railways, too, should control the speed of the trains.”
There have been several such incidents in the past in Uttarakhand, especially in the state’s Tarai area. In July 2020, a three-year-old elephant was killed in Nakraunda area of the Dehradun forest division when struck by a moving train. In November last year, a 35-year-old female elephant was killed while in May 2018, a five-year-old female elephant died on the Lalkuan-Bareilly railway line in Nainital district. In March 2018 an elephant had died in a similar incident near the Nagla bypass on the Lalkuan-Bareilly railway line while in April 2017 two elephant calves were killed near Haldi railway station in Kumaon.
The state has recorded a 29.9% increase in elephant numbers since 2015, and an elephant census held last year estimated the total elephant population in the state to be 2,026.