An adult elephant, part of a herd of 35 elephants, fell into a 20-foot deep well in Jiling Sereng village of Ranchi’s Tamar block, around 55-km from capital city, on Tuesday night, leading to a moving rescue operation launched by the fellow tuskers in the herd.
The jumbo, which was spotted by villagers around 5am on Wednesday, was finally rescued by the forest officials with help of an excavator around 12.30 noon after a rescue mission by the herd of the elephant had failed.
The Tamar forest range officer Amarnath Bhagat said a herd of 35 elephants has been reported in Tamar forest range for the past three days. The herd was in Jiling Sereng forest Tuesday night looking for food in a paddy field.
“While crossing a farm field in the village, one of the adult elephants fell into a 20-foot-deep well. The villagers said the well was almost dry. The herd tried to save their fellow jumbo by filling water into it but failed,” Bhagat said.
He said, “As per the villagers, the elephants carried water by filling it into their trunks from a nearby pond and poured it into the well. The jumbos might have thought that their fellow may come out of the well if they filled it with water. Since the well was deep, they could only fill it partially. By the morning, they left for the forest, as villagers had started gathering.”
Bhagat said as they were informed about the incident, a team of forest staff and excavator was rushed to the spot.
The team started its rescue operation around 9.30am. “We used the excavator to dig a part of the well and make passage for elephant to come out. The passage was successfully created by 12.30am and the elephant was safely released to the forest,” he said.
