A tragedy on the railway in the northeastern Indian state of Assam claimed the lives of seven wild Asian elephants. The high-speed passenger train Rajdhani Express, carrying 650 passengers, crashed into a huge herd that was crossing the tracks in a forested area. This was reported by CNN, writes UNN.
Details
The express train driver, heading to New Delhi, noticed the animals too late. Despite an attempt at an emergency stop, the heavy train hit part of the herd. The impact was so strong that the locomotive and five passenger cars derailed.
The train driver noticed a herd of approximately 100 elephants and applied emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals. We uncoupled the cars that did not derail, and the train resumed its journey to New Delhi. About 200 passengers who were in the five derailed cars were transported to Guwahati by another train.
There were no human casualties, but the consequences for the animals were fatal: seven individuals died on the spot, and another sustained serious injuries.
Assam is home to one of the largest populations of Asian elephants in the world – about 7,000 individuals. The problem of collisions on the tracks is exacerbated during this period, when animals leave the forests for human settlements in search of rice crops.
Although railway workers claim that the section 125 km from Guwahati was not considered an official "elephant corridor," statistics are relentless: since 2020, more than a dozen of these giants have died under the wheels of trains in the state. Veterinarians have already performed autopsies on the dead animals, after which they were buried near the site of the tragedy.