BHUBANESWAR/ROURKELA: A female elephant died after a passenger train hit it near Beheramunda in Sundargarh district late on Friday. The animal died on the spot. In another incident, an ailing elephant fell into mud in a paddy field near Deulijhar village in Angul district on Saturday.Sources said 19 elephants reportedly entered Sundargarh forest division on Friday evening. A team of forest officials chased the elephant to keep them away from Lamlibahal, but the herd entered the village and damaged a couple of houses. Later the elephant herd got divided and nine of them moved towards the railway track. Eight of them crossed the track, whereas a six-year-old female elephant got hit by the Yesvantpur-Tata Express "Keeping the elephant movement in mind, we had requested the railway officials to control the speed of the train. The trains also slowed down on the stretch but still the accident took place," said divisional forest officer (Sundargarh) Arun Mishra . The railway officials and forest department staff reached the spot and started investigation. A team of veterinary officials conducted postmortem of the elephant that was later buried near the railway track.The second incident took place near Deulijhar village under Angul's Athmalik forest range. "A sick female elephant was trapped in the mud of a paddy field. As the elephant was unwell, she fell down while crossing the paddy field. Though she tried to get up and walk, it failed," said a forest official.DFO Athmalik K S Pradeep said he got information about the elephant at around 5 am. "We rushed to the site with veterinarians. With the help of the villagers, we rescued the animal from the mud and took it to a dry place near the paddy field. Two veterinarians have started treating the animal," he added.Pradeep said the jumbo has general weakness. District veterinary officer of Angul and his colleague attended the 20-year-old female elephant. "Condition of the animal is improving. We will monitor it for 48 hours. If it gets fit, we will let her enter into the forest," said the DFO.

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