12 Jan 2020

A 10-year-old girl was killed by an elephant in Odisha’s Keonjhar district on Friday night, taking the number of deaths in the raging conflict between humans and animals to a record high in the state.

Odisha forest and wildlife officials said the girl in Hariharpur village under Patna forest range of Keonjhar was trampled to death on Friday evening by a tusker while she was playing outside her home.

With her death, the total number of human casualties from April last year till date has reached an all-time high of 93 deaths after 92 people were killed by tuskers in 2018-19.

Official data shows November 2019 was a particularly bad month for humans living in elephant corridors when 17 people were killed in the state. In August, 15 were killed and 14 in April.

The districts of Dhenkanal and Angul proved to be the most dangerous for humans as each reported 19 deaths followed by Sundargarh and Mayurbhanj that accounted for 11 deaths each.

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