A man in Yangon Division’s Taikkyi Township was trampled to death by a wild elephant on Sunday.
The deceased, 57-year-old Tin Maung, and his wife were staying on a makeshift platform on a tree close to their hillside farm in the Magari forest reserve on the edge of the Bago Range when it collapsed at night.
He was trampled by a wild elephant roaming nearby.
“We were staying on the tree platform as we tended our hillside farm,” said the victim’s wife. “We were chatting when it collapsed in the late evening, and we were thrown to the ground. Then we encountered the wild elephant – it was a dark night and I couldn’t see anything.
“I screamed for help but we were quite a distance from any other people in the area, so no one came. I just ran away in fear.”
Tin Myaing died with open wounds across his body.
Residents in Taikkyi live in constant fear of roaming wild elephants, at times in a parade, coming to eat crops on their farms on the edge of the forest range.
Local villagers often have to shoo them away by showing up in a big crowd, wielding torches and making loud noises. Those who live outside the villages often sleep at night on the makeshift tree platforms for safety.
According to locals, at least three people in Taikkyi are killed by wild elephants every year.
This article originally appeared in the Democratic Voice of Burma and has been reprinted with permission.
