Four of a family trampled by elephants
Nov 19, 2006 - 8:03:26 PM
, Reviewed by: Priya Saxena
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Villagers often poison the marauding elephants while in the past they drove them away by beating drums or bursting firecrackers.
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By Indo Asian News Service,
[RxPG] Guwahati, Nov 19 (IANS) Four members of a family, including an infant, were trampled to death Sunday by wild Asiatic elephants in Assam, the latest in a series of attacks on human beings, wildlife officials said.
A forest official said a herd of about seven elephants entered village Borbhugia in Sonitpur district, about 270 km north from here.
'The elephants after entering the village tore apart a hut and killed the entire family of four who were sleeping. The dead include a seven month old baby boy,' Chandan Bora, a wildlife warden, told IANS over telephone.
The official said villagers came out in large numbers on hearing the family shouting for help. 'By the time the villagers could react, the herd trampled the entire family and ransacked the hut,' Bora said.
Villagers later chased the animals beating drums. During the past fortnight, herds of wild elephants have been wreaking havoc in several parts of Assam, especially in villages where tribal people brew large volumes of rice beer.
On Monday last, three members of a family were killed and another wounded in a similar attack by elephants in eastern Assam, while three wild elephants were electrocuted after the animals tripped over an electric pole and the high tension wire fell on them.
Experts say wild elephants have been moving out of the jungles in search of food with people encroaching upon animal corridors leading to an increasing number of elephant attacks on villages.
Elephants have killed 239 people in Assam in the past five years while 265 elephants have died during the same period, many of them victims of retaliation by angry human beings, said a wildlife department report released last month.
Villagers often poison the marauding elephants while in the past they drove them away by beating drums or bursting firecrackers.
Assam has India's largest population of Asiatic elephants, estimated at around 5,300, according to a wildlife census in 2002.
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