GUWAHATI
Two elephants died on Thursday in collisions with freight trains in two separate locations under the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR).
A spokesperson of the NFR said the first incident happened between Chalsa and Nagrakata stations in the Dooars region of northern West Bengal at about 2:40 a.m. The section is within the NFR’s Alipurduar Division.
The second incident happened at 7:10 a.m. in the Digaru-Panbari stretch of an arterial track in Assam. The area is under the NFR’s Lumding Division.
“We have taken serious note of these incidents and have alerted all the elephant corridors within the NFR area. But these two sections where the collision happened were beyond the notified elephant corridors,” Sabyasachi De, the spokesperson said.
“These sections were also not covered by the intrusion detection system. However, due to the success of this system, the Ministry of Railways has sanctioned ₹77 crore for covering most of the elephant corridors within the NFR,” he said.
There are more than 50 elephant corridors in Assam and West Bengal through which the NFR’s network of tracks pass. Officials said the figure keeps changing because of newer routes herds are forced to take due to human habitations on older corridors.
