Rebecca Manzi A train hit a herd of eight elephants along the tracks in Habarana, Sri Lanka. Six of them died, including three calves, and the other two were injured
@Alex P/Pexels
There was a severe train collision in the early hours of Thursday, February 20, 2025, in Habarana city, located around 110 miles east of Colombo, Sri Lanka‘s capital city. A herd of eight elephants that had strayed onto the rail tracks was struck by a passenger train and resulted in the deaths of six elephants, three of them calves, while two were injured. The impact was strong enough to have derailed the train, but, thank God, nobody on board was hurt.
Local government and wildlife officials soon arrived on the scene to help the injured elephants. Photographs made public by the media showed a sad moment: one of the injured elephants attempting to assist a struggling calf, wrapping itself around the calf with its trunk.
The accident has also sparked renewed debates on the growing problem of human-wildlife conflict in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is inhabited by about 7,000 wild elephants, which are of immense cultural and religious importance, especially in Buddhist societies.
Estimates are that around 450 elephants lost their lives in 2023 alone
But the unabated destruction of natural habitats and expansion of human settlements have led to a rise in human-animal conflict. Deforestation and land clearing to pave the way for agriculture in recent years have forced more elephants to stray on roadways and rail lines in search of food, thereby increasing the likelihood of accidents.
Deputy Environment Minister Anton Jayakody called the incident “the worst in the country’s recent history” on train-wildlife accidents. To address it, the government has called a crisis meeting to formulate new countermoves like setting up defensive barriers, electric fences, and other devices designed to keep the elephants off train tracks.
Based on the Department of Wildlife Conservation, human-wildlife conflicts claimed the lives of around 450 elephants and 150 humans in 2023. Last year recorded fewer elephant deaths but at an alarming rate. An estimated 3,500 elephants have lost their lives in Sri Lanka since 2015 either in direct human-elephant conflict or in accidents related to urban expansion. Locating a balance between wildlife conservation and human safety is crucial to preventing such tragedies from occurring in the future.
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