KRISHNAGIRI: In yet another jumbo accident in Tamil Nadu, a speeding government bus hit a 'makhna' elephant, leaving the elephant injured at Shooalgiri, on Chennai-Bengaluru national highway. Around 5 am on Monday, when the makhna (a male elephant without a tusk) crossed the road along with a herd, a bus, which came speeding down the national highways, knocked the 10-year-old jumbo down. With severe injuries in its legs and excess bleeding, the elephant is battling for life. A team of experts from Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary has rushed to Krishnagiri to treat the injured elephant.
"Experts from Mudumalai are of the opinion that the jumbo may not have sustained bone fracture. If the x-ray reports show no damages in the bone, the animal will be treated and released into the wild, " Conservator of forest A.K.Ulaganathan told reporters. In the last two years, it is the third incident in which wild elephants have been killed or injured while crossing the 55-km stretch of the Chennai-Bengaluru national highway from Krishnagiri to Hosur.
"I noticed two jumbos crossing the road. I tried to avoid hitting the makhna elephant, but the bus came to a halt only after hitting the elephant," said a visibly shocked, 40-year-old Anbumani, the driver of the government bus, which rammed the elephant. A crane was brought in to shift the jumbo from the highways to a truck and taken to the Gopachandram forest nursery near Hosur. Government veterinarians A.Prakash, V.Jayakodi, K.Vadivalagan and S.Bharathidasan examined the elephant writhing in pain.
The experts initially suspected that the elephant had suffered a fracture in its right front leg. "The injured makhna was given sedation to reduce its pain," government veterinarian A.Prakash told reporters. "Initially, we planned to shift the injured animal to Vandalur, but it was later changed to Mudumalai where the facility is available to tend the elephant back to health," said Dr. Prakash. However, a team of experts from Mudumalai took an x-ray of the injured leg of the makhna and they hope that the elephant had not sustained a bone fracture.
