GUWAHATI, India (AP) — Seven wild Asian elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd of elephants crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern Assam state early Saturday, local authorities said.
Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told The Associated Press that the train driver spotted about 100 elephants and applied emergency brakes, but the train still hit some elephants.
Sharma said five train carriages and the engine derailed after the impact, but no one was injured.
Veterinarians performed necropsies on the dead elephants, which will be buried later in the day.
The accident occurred in a forested area about 125 kilometers (78 miles) southeast of Guwahati, the capital of Assam state. The state’s railway tracks are frequented by elephants, but the Indian Railways said in a statement that the incident occurred not on a designated elephant corridor.
The Rajdhani Express train, which was bound for the national capital New Delhi from Serang in Mizoram state bordering Myanmar with 650 passengers on board, collided with an elephant.
“We canceled the connection of the non-derailed carriages and the train resumed its journey to New Delhi. Around 200 passengers in the five derailed carriages have been shifted to Guwahati in another train,” Sharma said.
It is not uncommon for speeding trains to hit wild elephants in Assam, a state with an estimated 7,000 wild Asian elephants and one of the highest concentrations of the pachyderms in India. Since 2020, at least a dozen elephants have been killed by speeding trains across the state.
At this time of year, when rice fields are being prepared for harvest, wild elephants often stray into human settlements.
