A devastating railway collision claimed the lives of seven wild Asiatic elephants and injured a calf in northeastern India’s Assam state during the early hours of Saturday. The Rajdhani Express train, transporting 650 passengers from Sairang to New Delhi, struck the elephant herd while traversing through forested terrain approximately 78 miles southeast of Guwahati, Assam’s capital.
According to Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma, the locomotive operator detected the massive herd of approximately 100 elephants and immediately engaged emergency braking systems. Despite these preventive measures, the high-speed passenger train could not avoid impact with multiple animals. The collision resulted in the derailment of five coaches and the engine, though remarkably no human passengers sustained injuries.
Veterinary specialists conducted postmortem examinations on the deceased elephants, with burial procedures scheduled for later the same day. Railway authorities confirmed that the accident occurred outside designated elephant crossing corridors, though the region is known for frequent elephant movements.
Following the incident, railway personnel separated the unaffected coaches, allowing the main train to continue its journey to New Delhi. Approximately 200 passengers from the derailed compartments were transferred to Guwahati via alternative transportation.
This tragedy highlights an ongoing conservation challenge in Assam, which hosts an estimated 7,000 wild Asiatic elephants—among India’s highest population densities for the species. Since 2020, train collisions have killed at least a dozen elephants statewide. The problem intensifies annually during harvest season, when elephants increasingly venture into human-occupied areas near railway tracks.