Four injured after elephant overturns autorickshaw in Kerala

Idukki, Kerala: Four people were injured, one of them seriously, on Wednesday after the autorickshaw they were travelling in was "accidentally" overturned by an elephant fleeing from another tusker at Kallar near Munnar in Idukki district, forest officials said.

The incident occurred in the morning when the injured persons, all of them sanitation workers, were going to the waste dumping yard at Kallar here, the officials said.

They said that the yard is unfenced and being a source of food, wild animals often frequent the area.

"Two elephants were present in the area since Tuesday and we had conveyed this information. The elephants got into a fight with each other and after that, one of them fled from there. While fleeing, it accidentally turned over the autorickshaw the sanitation workers were travelling in," a forest official said.

One of the four injured, a woman, is in serious condition with a fractured leg, while the others have minor injuries, the official said.

The elephants have been chased back into the forest, he added.

The official also said that the panchayat was asked several times to fence the waste dumping yard, but this has not been done till date.