Six Asiatic elephants electrocuted after drinking beer

In a tragic accident, six Asiatic wild elephants were electrocuted when they went berserk after drinking rice beer in India's remote northeast. The elephants died after uprooting an electric pole.

A herd of about 40 asiatic elephants were looking for food on Friday in Chandan Nukat, a village nearly 240 kilometres west of Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya state. Then they got the taste of rice beer brewed by tribal communities and the tragic accident happened.

"There would have been more casualties had the villagers not chased them away," said Dipu Mark, a local conservationist.

India's northeast accounts for the worlds largest concentration of wild Asiatic elephants with the states of Assam and Meghalaya alone estimated to have 7,000 of them. Four wild elephants had died similarly in the region three years ago. Link