BHUBANESWAR: Two elephants were killed after being hit by a speeding goods train near Mahipani in Sundargarh district in the wee hours of Thursday. The mishap took place at about 1.30 am when a herd was crossing the railway tracks and the speeding train dashed two female jumbos on the down line between Bhalulata-Jaraikela under South Eastern Railway (SER).
While one elephant was an adult, the other was aged around five years.
One elephant that was hit by the train loco was found lying between the up and down tracks and another got entangled within the train coaches.
All four wheels of the front trolley of the parcel van (next to the engine) derailed after hitting the animals.
Forest officials blamed the loco pilot for the tragic death of the elephants. They alleged though railways was intimated about the movement of an elephant herd, the train was running at a high speed when it hit the two elephants.
Such was the speed of the train that the adult female elephant was dragged by the train for nearly 200 metre on the track. The five-year-old elephant that fell outside the track after being hit by the train also succumbed to injuries hours after it was rescued.
At around 1.24 am, information about the presence of the elephant herd near the track was updated on the elephant monitoring app. The efforts, however, went in vain as the speeding train hit the animals 10 minutes later.
“Around 30 forest staff were monitoring the herd when it was crossing the railway track. Though a caution order was issued on Wednesday evening about movement of the herd near the track, the train moved at a very high speed,” said in-charge PCCF (Wildlife) Shashi Paul.
The incident led to blame game as the railway officials claimed the caution order did not mention the speed restriction and the alert was for sharp lookout and blowing long whistles, which the loco pilot followed.
Senior divisional commercial manager of Chakradharpur, Manish Pathak said it is insensitive to play the blame game at the death of elephants. The train was running at 80 kmph when the driver applied the brake on seeing the elephants.
A probe by a four-member team of officials has been ordered and a meeting between the divisional railway manager and PCCF has been fixed on February 8 for better coordination, he added.
Paul said Rourkela RCCF Bhanja Kishore Swain has submitted a preliminary investigation report, as per which a case will be registered and action taken as per law. In December last, speeding trains had killed two elephants on the 33-km Jujumara-Haribari railway track in Sambalpur Sadar forest range.