An elephant in a procession at a Hindu festival in Kataragama, Sri Lanka, panicked and tried to get away from the crowd on July 7, 2024. Thirteen people were hurt.
Kataragama sits about 280 kilometres south of Colombo. According to an animal welfare report on the incident, the elephant’s handlers tried to haul the animal back by its tail. That probably made things worse, the report said, since the animal may have felt threatened.
A spokesman for the state-run Kataragama hospital said every one of the injured has since been discharged. The elephant was returned to captivity.
Not the first time
Similar scenes have played out before. In August 2023, pilgrims in the central city of Kandy jumped into a lake to get away from five agitated young elephants. In 2019, at least 17 people were injured when elephants ran amok at a temple festival in Colombo.
Sri Lanka has about 200 captive elephants and a wild population of around 7,500. The government has banned the capture of wild elephants, yet dozens of calves have been stolen in recent years, often after their mothers were killed.
An alternative from Kerala
Animal rights campaigners argue that live elephants are not needed at religious events. They point to a temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala, which in 2023 swapped its ceremonial elephant for a life-sized mechanical one. The 10-foot-6-inch machine, named Irinjadappilly Raman, was donated by PETA for ceremonies at the Irinjadappilly Sree Krishna Temple.
