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| Home | Jun 13, 2001 |
vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn |
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Wild elephant herd claims tenth victim BINH THUAN — Rampaging elephants killed another villager in the southern province of Binh Thuan last Friday, amid continued delays to official plans to relocate the animals. The authorities have proposed shifting the elephants to Yok Don National Park in the Central Highlands province of Dac Lac. But in the meantime, the elephants have killed 10 people since May 1999. Angry villagers living in the province’s Ham Thuan and Tanh Linh districts said unless action was taken soon they would have no choice but to start killing the elephants to protect themselves from danger. The latest victim was Truong Thanh Hai, 29, of Suoi Kiet Commune in Tanh Linh District. Le Thi Huong, the victims’ wife, said the family was at home on Friday evening when they heard the elephants approaching. "I fled the house with our children, narrowly escaping an elephant’s trunk. As we ran clear of the house I heard my husband’s final cry." An eyewitness recalled seeing two groups of elephants, one of which attacked the dead man’s house. "My whole family flashed torches and made loud beating noises but the elephants were not scared, and we were forced to run for our lives," he said. The attack lasted for two hours and left three houses destroyed. The tragedy occurred less than 10 days after the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Forest Protection Department (FPD) held an emergency meeting with Binh Thuan Province’s Forest Protection Branch and environmental group Fauna and Floral International to finalise plans for the long overdue relocation. The authorities have repeatedly asked the villagers to refrain from killing the elephants which are listed as an endangered species in Viet Nam. — VNS
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