Wild elephants continue to trigger panic in Kerala's Idukki

Wild elephants continued to stray into human settlements and wreacked havoc in many pockets of the high-range district of Idukki in Kerala on Saturday.

A herd of jumbos, which was found roaming in estates, partially damaged a house at B L Ram village in Devikulam taluk in the early hours today, wildlife officials said.

The elephants positioned themselves in one of the estates for hours on Friday and forest officials chased it away from there after repeated attempts. But the animals did not go back to the forests, a wildlife official said.

“The house was partially damaged. But no one suffered any injury. We drove the herd away from that estate yesterday but the elephants are yet to go back to forests. We have limitations to drive them directly to forests,” a wildlife official told PTI.

The elephant herd’s attack on the house was reported a day after a wild tusker known locally as ‘Arikomban’, which frequently strays into human settlements allegedly in search of grains, destroyed a ration shop in Panniyar Estate in the early hours of Friday. ‘Ari’ means rice and ‘komban’ means tusker in local parlance.

A house was also destroyed in the elephant attack in a nearby area on Friday, wildlife officials added.