Elephant raids residential area in Coimbatore city

COIMBATORE: Forest department officials, with the help of local residents struggled for hours to scare away a wild elephant, that turned up at the Press Enclave in Kovaipudur in the wee hours of Monday. The tusker damaged compound walls of some houses and destroyed several trees, department sources said.

Panicked residents had contacted the department officials after finding the lone elephant at the colony around 12am. "We requested Kuniyamuthur police officers to warn the public not to come out of their residences for early morning walk. The residents co-operated with us," said M Senthilkumar, ranger, Madukkarai forest range anti-poaching watchers (APWs). "We deployed two teams of APWs to chase away the tusker. It did not attack anyone and was searching for food in the residential area," he said.

After seven hours of struggle, APW teams managed to send back the elephant to the reserve forest.

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