Jalpaiguri:Five elephants were killed and two critically
injured after a speeding goods train rammed a herd in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri District. The train's staff escaped unhurt. "At around 11 p.m., a goods train
hit a herd of wild elephants while passing through the Totopara Forest . This
incident killed five elephants and left two critically injured," said Darpana
Dutta, Additional Divisional Forest Officer of Jalpaiguri District. Locals of
nearby villages, on Thursday, helped officials remove the corpses of the elephants
from the railway tracks while the injured elephants were taken to a veterinary
hospital. This is not the first incident of its kind as speeding trains have killed
several pachyderms over the years. Around 18 elephants have been killed in the
Siliguri district alone in the past year.
