Search for single-tusked elephant after 22 killed in India rampage | India
Forest officials in India are hunting an elephant that killed more than 20 people in a days-long attack in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
A single-tusked elephant tearing through forests and villages in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district has killed 22 people since early January.
The attacks occurred mostly at night, as the elephants entered small villages. The first victim was a 35-year-old man in Bandijhari village on January 1. Those who have since been crushed to death or fatally injured include a couple, their two young children and a forest ministry official.
While the region was put on high alert, citizens living in the Chaibasa region, where the elephant was last seen, were warned to stay away from forest areas and not to go out at night.
Aditya Narayan, divisional forest officer in Chaibasa district, said they believed a young male elephant was separated from his herd and subjected to “extreme violence”. Narayan said three attempts have been made to calm the elephant but all have failed so far.
“Our team is on high alert and calming efforts will continue. Villagers have been strictly advised not to enter the forests and remain alert,” he told local media.
The elephant travels almost 30 km a day and more than 100 forest department personnel were assigned to a search operation to find it but without success.
Wildlife experts from three other states were also called in to locate the elephant, but officials said the animal’s instability and erratic trajectory through forests made it difficult to track its movements.
The violence comes at a time when deadly human-elephant conflict is on the rise in India, attributed to increasing deforestation, food and water shortages and increased housing encroachment in areas that were once elephant corridors.
Approximately 10% of the areas used as corridors, safe routes for elephant migration, no longer exist. Elephants also die in large numbers from events such as electrocution, train collisions, and retaliatory poisonings.
More than 2,800 people have died in India due to fatal encounters with elephants in the last five years.
In states like Andhra Pradesh, AI early warning systems have been deployed in some villages to detect elephant intrusions and protect villagers.
