Elephant attack near Guwahati leaves woman critical; herd hits Goalpara

A woman was critically injured when a wild elephant attacked her on the outskirts of Guwahati early on Monday, while a herd of around 40 elephants destroyed crops and damaged homes in several villages of Goalpara district overnight, The Sentinel reported.

Attack on a morning walk at Udaypur

The attack took place at Udaypur, a village on the Assam-Meghalaya border within the Rani Forest Range in Kamrup district. Ratna Kakati and a local youth, Srikanth Boro, were walking along a village road when a lone elephant, apparently separated from its herd after feeding through the night, came out of the bushes and charged at them.

Boro escaped by jumping into a concrete culvert by the roadside. Kakati was caught by the animal and suffered serious internal and bone injuries, according to the report.

Villagers took her to the Rani Community Health Centre. She was then referred to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), where she was admitted in a critical condition.

Boro told the paper that the elephant appeared without warning and charged straight away, seeming panicked.

A forest official quoted in the report said the break-up of habitat along the Rani-Garbhanga corridor is pushing lone elephants closer to roads and settlements, where they increasingly run into people early in the morning.

About 40 elephants in East Goalpara

Overnight, a much larger herd of nearly 40 elephants moved through villages in the Matia area of East Goalpara. The animals split into smaller groups and entered Bakaitari, Ratanpur, Nigam and Sidhabari.

They trampled hectares of Sali paddy that was ready for harvest and wiped out kitchen gardens. Some elephants also broke into houses looking for stored grain, forcing families to leave their homes for the night.

One farmer in Matia said months of work had been lost in a few hours and asked the forest department to post permanent monitoring teams in the area.

Forest department teams with searchlights and firecrackers were working with villagers to push the herd back towards the reserve forests, the report said.

A recurring problem at harvest time

The Rani and Garbhanga reserve forests on Guwahati's southern fringe and the forested belt of Goalpara are both on traditional elephant routes linking Assam with the Garo and Khasi hills of Meghalaya. Conflict tends to peak between October and December, when Sali paddy ripens and herds move into fields to feed.

Farmers in the Rani area had earlier sought a joint Assam-Meghalaya plan to tackle repeated elephant raids on their paddy.

Safety advice

Forest officials generally advise people in elephant-affected villages to avoid walking on forest-edge roads before sunrise and after dusk, to move in groups, never to approach or provoke elephants, and to inform the nearest forest range office as soon as a herd is spotted nearby. Compensation for crop and house damage and for injuries can be claimed through the forest department.