2 elephants run over by prepare in Odisha, railways and forest officers play blame sport

By Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: two elephants have been killed after being hit by a parcel van close to Mahipani in Sundargarh district within the wee hours of Thursday.

Sources stated the mishap befell at about 1.30 am when an elephant herd was crossing the railway tracks and the dashing prepare hit two feminine jumbos on the Down line between Bhalulata-Jaraikela beneath South Eastern Railway (SER) division.

While one elephant was discovered mendacity in between Up and Down line, one other elephant received entangled with prepare after it got here beneath the eighth coach from engine. All 4 wheels of the entrance trolley of the parcel van (subsequent to the engine) received derailed after hitting the elephants.

Forest officers blamed the loco pilot for the tragic demise of the elephants. They alleged that although railways was intimated concerning the motion of an elephant herd, the prepare was working at a excessive pace when it hit the elephants.

Such was the pace of the prepare that one of many grownup feminine elephants was dragged by the prepare for almost 200 metre on the observe. Another five-year-old elephant that fell outdoors the observe after being hit by the prepare additionally succumbed to accidents hours after it was rescued, they stated.

At round 1.24 am, the details about presence of the elephant herd close to the observe was up to date on the elephant monitoring app. The efforts, nevertheless, went in useless because the dashing prepare hit the pachyderms 10 minutes later.

“Around 30 forest staffers were monitoring the elephant herd when it was crossing the railway track. Though caution order was issued on Wednesday evening about movement of the herd near the track, the train moved at a very high speed,” stated in-charge PCCF (Wildlife) Shashi Paul.

The incident triggered a blame sport because the railway officers claimed the warning order didn’t point out concerning the pace restriction and the alert was for sharp lookout and blowing lengthy whistle, which the loco pilot adopted.

Senior divisional industrial supervisor of Chakradharpur, Manish Pathak, stated it’s insensitive to play the blame sport on the demise of elephants. The prepare was working at 80 kmph when the motive force utilized the brake on seeing the elephants. A probe by a four-member crew of officers has been ordered and a meetingbetween the divisional railway supervisor and PCCF has been fastened on February 8 for higher coordination, he added.

Paul stated Rourkela RCCF Bhanja Kishore Swain has submitted a preliminary investigation report, as per which a case will probably be registered and motion taken. Last December, dashing trains had killed two elephants on the 33-km Jujumara-Haribari railway observe within the Sambalpur Sadar forest vary.