Two elephants were shot dead after they went on the rampage killing eight people in northeast India, forest officials said today.
The elephants, used for moving logs in the timber industry, ran amok yesterday in Cachar district in Assam state, stampeding through villages and destroying dozens of bamboo and straw houses before police shot them.
Eight villagers were killed and nine injured.
"The elephants destroyed whatever came in their way. They trampled human beings, or flung them away," said Gautum Das, a local villager.
Elephants are a protected and endangered species in India, which has nearly half of the world's 60,000 Asian elephants.
Conservationists say elephant populations have fallen rapidly in recent years because of loss of habitat as a result of human encroachment into forest areas.