Seven elephants have died and one has been injured this Saturday, when a train leaving New Delhi has run over a herd of these animals in the northeast of India. “We are deeply saddened by the death of seven elephants – three adults and four calves – in a tragic railway collision that occurred today,” Himanta Biswa Sarma, head of the Government of the State of Assam, in the northeast of the country, reported on his X account. The locomotive derailed after the crash, with no injuries reported among the passengers. As for pachyderms, in the last five years at least 79 specimens have died due to collisions with trains in this country, according to official data from the Ministry of the Environment.
Biswa Sarma has also added that the Forest Department will be in charge of opening a detailed investigation into this “very worrying” accident. In addition, it has asked him to adopt measures to further secure the country’s wildlife corridors, “especially during seasons of low visibility.”
For its part, the Northeast Frontier Railway has reported in a statement that the incident occurred on a section that was not a designated corridor for this type of animals. “The driver, upon observing the herd of elephants, used the emergency brakes; however, the animals collided with the train,” the document states.
The railway network has explained that, when the train collided with the pachyderms, the locomotive and five carriages derailed, with no victims or injuries reported among the passengers. This clash highlights the tension between human infrastructure and wildlife in India.
The affected train is a Rajdhani Express, which covers routes that connect the capital, New Delhi, with important Indian cities such as Bombay, Calcutta or Hyderabad. In this case, he had left New Delhi for Guwahati at 6.11 am. In addition, the incident has caused the suspension of rail traffic.
India, guardian of almost 60% of the planet’s wild Asian elephants, is facing a global challenge to preserve this species emblematic in Asia, where it is in serious decline, due to habitat loss and human expansion.
India, due to its territorial size and conservation policies, plays a decisive role in the long-term survival of the species throughout Asia, being primarily responsible for conserving the genetic diversity and migratory corridors that connect these dispersed populations.
