Apathy jolt kills tusker

An adult male elephant was electrocuted in the forests of Chakulia, 70km from here, in the small hours today apparently when he tried to cross a mound of soil dumped for a canal job under the Subernarekha Multipurpose Project.

Jamshedpur DFO Saba Alam Ahmed said the tragedy took place at Bera jungle between 3am and 4am when a herd of 19 elephants was ambling along the under-construction canal.

"The soil, dumped by a civil construction firm, was eight feet high. The mound reduced the gap between the ground and a high-tension overhead transmission line from 18 feet to 10 feet, which is why the tusker came in contact with the wire. An 11KV jolt killed him then and there," Ahmed, who inspected the spot, said.

The DFO said the canal work was part of the multi-crore Subernarekha Multipurpose Project (SMP) and they would raise the issue with the department concerned.

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