An elephant in eastern India killed a 70-year-old woman and then returned to her funeral to crush her body.
Police said the accident took place in Odish on Thursday.
Maya Mormo was at a pipe well that was pumping water from the village of Raipala, Mayorbang province, when a wild elephant appeared out of nowhere.
Authorities said they deviated from the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary, about 200 km from Merbang.
Police officer Lopamudra Najaka, quoted by the Indian press trust, said she was taken to a hospital where she died of her injuries after she was run over.
According to reports, when family members gathered for the funeral and performed the last rituals, the same elephant appeared, lifted Mrs. Mormo’s body from the funeral campfire, and trampled it again while the mourners were in shock.
The family could only move forward with the party after the elephant was gone. It is not yet clear whether the animal has harmed anyone else.
Conflicts between elephants and humans in Odish are widespread. Intensive industrial activity in the mineral-rich state has increased human intervention in animal habitats, increasing the chances of confrontation between villagers and elephants.
There was also a worrying trend in the country Increase in the number of unnatural deaths in elephants. At least 1,356 elephants have died in Odish between 2000 and 2001, according to the state’s chief wildlife watchdog, IANS reports.
In the seven months from April to October last year, the state registered at least 42 deaths of elephants.
Several other cases of conflict between humans and elephants have been reported from other parts of the country.
In March of this year, a woman died in an attack by a wild elephant in a forest in the central state of Chhattisgarh in Bilaspur. Police said her eight-year-old grandson was injured while trying to escape.
In May, an elephant ran to the death of a 40-year-old woman near her home near Gudalur, in the Nilgiris district of southern Tamil Nadu.
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