At least one person died and eight were reported missing when their boat capsized in the Kaudiyala river in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district on Wednesday evening, hours after which wild elephants attacked rescuers and forced them to run for their lives.

The river tragedy happened around 6pm when 22 people from Khairatiya village of neighbouring Lakhimpur district were travelling by boat to the forest village of Bharathapur, police said, adding efforts are on to trace the missing persons. Locals said the boat overturned because the flow of the water was strong.

“Of the 22 people, 13 swam to safety. Villagers, along with the police and the Sashastra Seema Bal, conducted a rescue operation and recovered the body of a woman. We couldn’t trace the rest of the villagers, including four children. Later, the national and state disaster response forces joined the rescue operation, but they too drew a blank. We started looking for them again today (Thursday) with the help of the SSB,” said
Ram Pratap Maurya, a villager of Bharthapur.

“It rained on Tuesday and Wednesday and there were strong currents in the river. The flow increased further when the Girijapuri barrage in the Ghaghara river (part of the same interconnected system as Kaudiyala) was opened by the irrigation department. The boat hit a tree in the water, about 100 metres from the riverbank, and turned upside down,” he added.

Residents of Bharthapur village, located inside a forest, go to Khairatiya Bazar in Lakhimpur Kheri district every day by boat. The 5km journey takes around 40 minutes. A bridge, which could have cut travel time to 10 minutes, cannot be built over the river because of the presence of some endangered species in the area.

Bharthapur, the first Indian village after the Nepal border, is surrounded by the Gerua river on two sides and the Kaudiyala river and a dense forest on the other two sides.

While the rescue operation was in progress on Thursday morning, a herd of elephants that had strayed from the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary nearby arrived on the bank of the Kaudiyala river, scaring Sanjay Kumar, a lekhpal (village-level officer
of the revenue department), and his assistant Adarsh Kumar.

The duo, who were reviewing the rescue effort, ran away.

“We were on the riverbank when suddenly we saw some elephants coming towards us. We escaped from there to save our lives,” Sanjay said.

The elephants have been camping near Bhawanipur village for the past three
days, destroying several acres of standing crop and chasing villagers who go anywhere near them.

“We are living in terror as the elephants can enter the village anytime. There are a large number of mud houses here, which can be easily damaged. We have informed forest officials but received no assistance yet,” Achal Nishal, a villager, told reporters on Thursday.

Ashish Gaur, the forest ranger of the sanctuary, said: “We have formed several teams and enhanced our patrolling in the area. We are trying to force the elephants to return to the forest.”

Man-animal conflict in Bahraich is not new and has intensified in the past few years. Many people in the district have lost their lives in attacks by wolves, leopards and tigers, while scores of others have been injured. Elephants and bears also stray into human habitats.

Laxmi Narayan, who was on the boat that capsized on Wednesday evening, said he had to swim for about 30 minutes along with a few others to reach the bank of the river. “We didn’t know on which side we were going and reached near the forest,” he told reporters on Thursday.

The dead woman has been identified as Ramjei Devi, 65. Those missing are boatman Mihilal Yadav, 38, Shivnandan Maurya, 50, Suman, 28, Sohni, 5, Shivam, 9, a 5-year-old girl and Ramjei’s grandsons aged 7 and 10.