Thailand: Chinese tourists rescued from killer elephant

By Max Constant

BANGKOK

Two Chinese tourists and their child were given the ride of their life Wednesday, when a crazed elephant - on the back of which they were sitting - ran amok in the jungles of Northern Thailand after killing its handler.

The Bangkok Post reported a police officer as saying Thursday that the family could only be rescued when another mahout (handler) tracked down the elephant and got it to calm down - around one hour later. 

“The Chinese family was rescued from a terrifying ordeal after a male elephant went into a rage,” the unnamed police officer said.

The ordeal started when Plai Somjai, a 30-year-old male, tried to throw the tourists from its back while he was being taken for a ride in a stream at Putawan elephant camp in Chiang Mai while carrying the three Chinese tourists.

The mahout tried to control the elephant, only to be gored and trampled to death as the family sat uptop and watched. He then charged off into the jungle with the trio still aboard.

Police Colonel Supoj Junkaeo told the Post that another mahout, Kwan Klui, finally managed to approach the infuriated pachyderm about one kilometre from the scene of the killing.

He said it took an hour for him to calm the animal down and return it to the camp with the tourists, where he calmly let the shaken but uninjured Chinese family off his back.

“The mahout was able to control Plai Somjai because he used to take care of him when he was young,” Junkaeo said.

Incidents involving infuriated elephants are rare, but happen occasionally in Thailand, where the animals are used in the tourist industry.

In 2000, a young British woman was gored to death and two other people were injured by a bull elephant during an “elephant show” in Nong Nooch tropical garden, near the Thai beach resort of Pattaya.

Just before the incident, tourists reportedly irritated the animal by teasing him with bananas.

In the last two years, a string of incidents saw wild elephants in Khao Yai national park northeast of Bangkok attack cars on a road.

In the most spectacular of these encounters, bull elephants mounted vehicles - forcing those inside to cower in terror - and tore parts off with their trunks.