Rourkela: Elephants trampled two persons to death Monday in separate incidents under different forest divisions in Sundargarh district. While one person was killed in Koira forest range under Bonai division, another was killed near Sona Parbat, under the Rourkela forest division, sources said. Samuel Sainda, a resident of Jhirpani village under the Koira range, had gone to relieve himself early in the morning. Unfortunately, he came in front of a male elephant. Samuel tried to escape but the elephant caught him with his trunk. Soon he was trampled and left dead on the spot.
The Forest department later recovered the body and sent it for post-mortem. “Samuel’s family has been given the initial amount for cremation and after the official report they will get full compensation,” a Forest official said. For the last couple of days a herd, that has strayed from Jharkhand, has made life miserable for the villagers. Despite the best efforts of Forest personnel, they keep coming back. In the second incident one Sukramani Samasi, 75, resident of Sona Parbat area, was trampled by a tusker while she had gone to collect forest produce. Her relatives informed that she came face to face with a tusker. She tried to escape but fell down and died.