Train
runs over jumbos and derails - Young tusker’s body gets tangled in
wheels
THE TELEGRAPH
July 2 , 2014
The female elephant mowed down by the train in the Madhu tea garden.
Alipurduar,
July 1: Two elephants in the Dooars were mowed down today by an empty
special train that derailed as the body of one of the animals got
tangled in its wheels.
An adult female elephant and a young
tusker were on the tracks when the special two-compartment train for
the army, going from New Jalpaiguri to New Bongaingaon in Assam, came
hurtling down the tracks near Madhu Tea Estate in Kalchini around 2am.
A
railway official said the stretch where the elephants were run over was
not in any elephant crossing zone, where train drivers are required to
whistle continuously at daytime and night.
The elephant
crossing zones are marked out by signposts that mention the numbers of
the pillars to tell the driver about the stretch when the train must
whistle.
In addition to that, all trains running between
Siliguri Junction and Alipurduar Junction — a distance of 165km — must
not exceed the speed of 50kmph between dusk and dawn.
These
rules were made on the basis of recommendations by a joint committee of
the railway and environment and forest ministries in 2007-08, following
several instances of elephant deaths on north Bengal’s railway tracks.
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