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Rourkela: Panic gripped steel city Rourkela today after a herd of elephants including two tuskers, three elephant calfs and six female elephants sneaked into the city area breaking three auto rickshaws and damaging two houses last night. The jumbos have entered the Bisra Stadium and stayed there even as forest department is making efforts to disperse the animals to forest safely.
As the animal herd is inside the stadium, local people have gathered there to watch them. District administration has alerted people not to disturb the animals.
“We have asked people to vacate the place as soon as possible. Otherwise elephants will be disturbed due to noise and they may break the iron grill to enter market area. So, we are considering to slap sec-144 there to disperse people as a precautionary measure” Rourkela ADM Rabindranath Misha said.
On the other hand, forest department has made food and drinking water arrangement for the jumbos. The officials have given banyan tree branches, banana and sufficient water to the pachyderms.
“We have made all arrangements for the safety of the elephants and efforts are on to facilitate their movements towards Saranda jungle of neighboring Jharkhand” DFO, Panposh forest division, Sanchit Kumar Said.
According to sources the elephants have come from the Saranda forest for last two years and camped at Kuanrmunda area of Rourkela. A few days ago, a herd of elephants were trying to enter the city via RS Colony while forest officials managed to disperse them. Similarly, some elephants caused heavy losses in Kachar village under Kuanrmunda forest range of Rourkela two days ago.
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