Wild Elephant Kills 57-Year-Old Woman in Rubber Plantation
In Chanthaburi province, a 57‑year‑old rubber tapper was killed when a wild elephant attacked and trampled her in a plantation near Wang Jaeng Temple. Authorities recovered her scattered tapping equipment and confirmed that five people have died in elephant‑related incidents this year. Officials have warned villagers to avoid forest‑border areas and are deploying monitoring teams to track the elephant.
At 06:00 on 9 October 2024, reporters received word that a villager had been killed by a wild elephant in a rubber plantation near Wang Jaeng Temple, Moo 14, Khun Song subdistrict, Kaeng Hang Maew district, Chanthaburi province. Police from Kaeng Hang Maew Station, district officials and the Sawang Katanyu rescue team rushed to the scene. Inside the rubber plantation, they found the body of a 57‑year‑old woman named Tuukta (surname withheld) lying on the ground beside a rubber tree, with severe injuries from being attacked and trampled by a large wild elephant. Nearby lay her equipment — a headlamp, rubber‑tapping knife, hat and shoes — scattered across the floor.
Initial investigation revealed that the victim had gone out to tap rubber as usual at 05:30, when the sky was just beginning to light. She did not expect a wild elephant to be lurking in the plantation; a close encounter ensued and she was fatally injured.
After the incident, district officials coordinated with the police station’s investigators and a duty doctor to conduct an autopsy. They also contacted officials from the Fifteen‑Tier Waterfall National Park and the elephant‑monitoring team to deploy personnel quickly to track the elephant’s behavior.
Around 06:22, the elephant was still hiding on the hill behind Wang Jaeng Temple, not far from the attack site. Village heads and community leaders were ordered to broadcast warnings via village loudspeakers, urging residents to avoid risky areas and fruit orchards near the forest edge.
Elephant‑human conflict in Chanthaburi has become an escalating crisis. Statistics for 2024 show that five villagers and farmers have been killed by wild elephants, with more than six seriously injured. Most victims are fruit farmers and rubber tappers who work early morning or dusk in forest‑border areas such as Kaeng Hang Maew, Khao Khitchakut and Soi Dao, indicating that elephants regularly leave protected zones to forage.
Local residents are calling on the government and relevant agencies to review and improve long‑term strategies for keeping elephants inside conservation areas, including building elephant‑proof ditches, installing early‑warning systems (Smart Early Warning), and swiftly and fairly compensating victims and families of those killed or injured by wildlife, so that border‑communities need not keep sacrificing lives to elephant attacks.
