Indian authorities have reported that seven wild Asian elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train hit a herd of elephants in the northeastern state of Assam early Saturday morning. According to Kapingial Kishore Sharma, a spokesman for Indian Railways who spoke to Associated Press, the train driver spotted a herd of about 100 elephants and applied emergency brakes, but the train still struck some of the animals. He added that five train cars were derailed after hitting the elephant, but there were no human injuries. Veterinarians performed autopsies on the dead elephants. The accident site is located in a forested area, about 125 kilometers (78 miles) southeast of Guwahati, the capital of Assam state. Although elephants frequently roam the state's railway lines, Indian Railways stated in a statement that the accident site is not a designated elephant corridor. The Rajdhani Express train, traveling from Sairang in the neighboring state of Mizoram, which borders Myanmar, to the national capital Delhi with 650 passengers on board, hit the elephant.
