Toll reaches 13 as elephants continue Nepal ravage

KATHMANDU - More than three weeks after a wounded elephant killed at least 11 people in Nepal, the pachyderms have continued to wreak havoc with the toll now rising to 13.

A woman, Savitra Lamichhane, who had gone to the forest in Sindhuli district to gather firewood, was trampled to death Thursday night, police said.

Sindhuli, Udaypur and Dhanusha remain the epicentre of attacks by a wounded male elephant, thought to have strayed into Nepal from the forests of Assam in eastern India last month.

Four people, including woman and children, have been killed in each district.

The 13th death was reported from Bardiya in farwestern Nepal where a farmer, Om Prakash Jaisi, was killed Wednesday after he tried to chase away an elephant that was devastating his paddy field.

The forest department is asking villagers not to accost the marauders or try to injure them.

The elephants have been following a century-old migratory route from India to Nepal and return to their own grazing grounds in due course.

With forest cover rapidly shrinking in Nepal due to human encroachment and habitation, the herds are now often at war with villagers, plundering cultivated fields and destroying huts.

After consultations with the World Wildlife Fund and forest officials, the Nepal government this year instituted compensation for destroyed property and people killed by the big beasts.

Since the elephant is an endangered animal, Nepal is bound by an international convention not to kill the marauders.

The government is seeking to raise funds to erect electric fences in the Terai plains to keep away trampling herds.