Guwahati, Aug. 12 (IANS): A speeding freight train killed a wild elephant in Assam on Saturday, railway officials said.The incident occurred at around 7 a.m. on the Digaru–Panbari section under the Lumding division of the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR).In an official statement, the Railways said that they have taken serious note of the accident and had alerted all the elephant corridors within the NFR area. However, the section where the incident happened was beyond the notified elephant corridors,” an NFR officer told IANS.
“Due to this, this part was not covered by the Intrusion Detection System (IDS),” he said, adding that as the IDS has been highly successful, the Union Ministry of Railways has sanctioned Rs 77 crore for covering most of the elephant corridors within NFR. The AI-based IDS software can monitor unusual movements up to a distance of 60 km. In addition, it can also help in detecting rail fractures and trespassing on railway tracks and alert about disaster mitigation due to unauthorized digging near railway tracks, landslides near tracks, etc. According to the NFR officer, the IDS has already been immensely successful in saving the lives of many elephants approaching railway tracks from being hit by trains.