INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
was run over by the same train involved in the February 20 accident that killed seven elephants
After that crash, officials imposed speed limits on trains passing through elephant habitats.No passengers were injured in the accident,
which occurred some 110 miles by road east of the capital Colombo.Railway authorities said an investigation was underway, and engineers were
trying to put the Colombo-Batticaloa train back on the track after the pre-dawn crash.The authorities had earlier announced changes to train
timetables and efforts to clear shrubs from either side of the track to improve visibility for drivers, to give them more time to avoid
hitting elephants.Wildlife officials have said that 139 elephants have been killed by trains over the past 17 years, since authorities began
collecting such data.The government has also announced that 1,195 people and 3,484 elephants have been killed in the past decade due to the
worsening human-elephant conflict on the island.Killing or harming elephants is a criminal offense in Sri Lanka, which has an estimated
as desperate farmers struggle with elephants raiding their crops and destroying livelihoods.Many elephants have been electrocuted, shot, or
Sometimes, explosive-laden fruits are used to maim the animals, often resulting in painful deaths.India, which has a wild elephant
population more than twice as large as Sri Lanka, also deals with regular train-pachyderm collisions
corridors, but campaigners say the rules are often poorly enforced.Earlier this year the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu became the
first to launch an artificial intelligence and machine learning-enabled surveillance system to help prevent elephant deaths on
railways.Source: CBS--Agencies
