Dhenkanal: Seven elephants died after coming in contact with a sagging electric wire in Odisha’s Dhenkanal on Friday. This is the highest casualty of elephants in a single incident in Odisha.
A herd of 13 elephants was passing through the village in Sadar Forest Range and seven of them came in contact with an 11-KV line, Assistant Conservator of Forest Jitendranath Das said.
The carcasses of seven pachyderms, including a tusker and five female elephant, were spotted in the morning by villagers who informed forest officials.
While three carcasses were lying on a road, four others were inside a canal. The incident took place when the herd was moving toward a canal road from a nearby paddy field.
Senior forest officials including Divisional Forest Officer of Dhenkanal Sudarsan Patra and ACF Das rushed to the spot and arrangements were made for shifting the carcasses, said an official.
Another official said the forest department had told the energy department to direct the agency concerned to ensure that the electric wire was at a height of 17-18 feet above the ground.the Dhenkanal DFO had submitted a stretch of 136.57 kms of LT lines passing through vulnerable areas for cabling. In the coordination meeting held on September 24 with the Energy Department, the CESU officials informed that the cabling of transmission line is yet to be taken up in Dhenkanal Division of Angul Circle although the lists of transmission lines for cabling were submitted to the Energy Department six months back.
a local alleged, “The electric wire was left in open carelessly for the last 15 days and the concerned departments were apprised about it. The district administration including the electric and forest departments are responsible for the mishap that took the lives of seven jumbos” .
The environment ministry data shows that 655 elephant deaths took place in India from 2009 to 2017. This translates into an average of about 80 elephant deaths per year, seven every month and one every four days. The main reasons for elephant deaths are electrocution, train accidents, poaching and poisoning.