Elephant Saved After Getting Stuck in River Water in Panna Tiger Reserve, According to MP

The rescue of a female elephant that had been stranded in the water of the Ken river in the Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Madhya Pradesh was announced on Sunday by authorities. They said that the event occurred on Thursday, adding that the trapped jumbo was able to keep its trunk up for breathing and was recovered following a four-hour effort.

According to the deputy director of the PTR, Ripudaman Singh Bhadoria, information was received on Thursday indicating that a female elephant became entangled in the water flow of the Ken river in the Madla section of the reserve. Because the legs of the elephant were chained together, the rescue mission was more challenging than usual. However, he added that the elephant was able to maintain its trunk up enough that it could breathe.

According to Bhadoria, he reached out to the collectors of the neighboring Chhatarpur district and the Panna district for assistance, and both districts replied promptly by dispatching teams from the State Disaster Emergency Response Force (SDERF) and the Home Guard. According to him, however, the heavy water flow in the river made it difficult for the rescue personnel to anchor their boats in the water.

The SDERF crews anchored their boat with the assistance of another boat. After afterwards, the shackles that were attached to the elephant’s legs were severed, he claimed. The official said that the elephant’s health is now OK after the rescue operation, which took approximately four hours to complete.

Harjinder Singh, the collector of Panna, said that the PTR authorities had provided the district administration with information on the situation. Despite the overwhelming odds, search and rescue crews from the districts of Panna and Chhatarpur were successful in rescuing the elephant, he added.