Train kills seven elephants crossing tracks in India

Seven wild Asian elephants were killed and a calf injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam.

Indian Railways spokesperson Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told The Associated Press that the train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants early on Saturday and used the emergency brake, but the train still hit some of the animals.

Sharma said that five train wagons and the engine derailed after the collision, but there was no human loss.

Veterinarians performed autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day.

The crash site is a forest area about 120 kilometers southeast of Guwahati, the capital of Assam.

Railway tracks in the state are frequently used by elephants, but the Indian Railways said the accident site was not a designated elephant corridor.

The Rajdhani Express train, which set out from Sairang in Mizoram state on the border with Myanmar, collided with elephants while it was about to go to the national capital New Delhi with 650 passengers.

“We disconnected the coaches that did not derail and the train continued its journey towards New Delhi. Around 200 passengers in the five derailed coaches were transported to Guwahati in a different train,” said Sharma. he said.

In Assam, home to an estimated 7,000 wild Asian elephants and one of the highest concentrations of pachyderms in India, it is not uncommon for high-speed trains to hit wild elephants.

At least a dozen elephants have been killed by bullet trains across the state since 2020.

Wild elephants often enter human habitats at this time of year when rice fields are ready for harvest.