Elephant tramples Thai handler, runs off with tourists on its back

BANGKOK – Police say an elephant trampled its handler to death while two Russian tourists were riding it during a nature trek in southern Thailand.

Police Lt. Col. Narong Laksanawimol said Monday the animal attacked the trainer and ran off with the travellers – a mother and her 9-year-old daughter – near a waterfall in Phang Nga province.

Rescue teams had to track the elephant about 3 kilometres (1.8 miles) and tranquilize it to rescue the tourists clinging to its back. Narong said the 60-year-old trainer had been crushed and drowned in a creek.

He said the male elephant had never attacked anyone since it was brought to work for a tourist company two years ago, adding that the animal was in musth, a state of aggressive sexual excitement.