Guwahati, April 7: A tourist from the Netherlands, Robert William Goldbrach, was trampled to death by an elephant in Kaziranga National Park around 9am today, 11 years after another foreign national, Mary Brumder, had met a similar fate at the world heritage site.

Today’s incident took place in the 7sqkm Panbari reserve forest, which is a part of the national park and a popular haunt for bird watchers although it also hosts ape species as the hoollock gibbon.

The forest, about 250km from Guwahati to the east, is located in the foothills of the Karbi Anglong range.

In 1998, Mary Brumder, an 80-year-old tourist from the US, died when she was trapped in a fight between two elephants which were ferrying a group of tourists inside the park.

Kaziranga director S.N. Buragohain said a group of nine tourists — four British, four Dutch and one Australian — accompanied by an armed forest guard and a tourist guide entered the Panbari reserve forest on foot early this morning when they came face to face with a wild makhana (a young male elephant).

Abidur Rahman, the tourist guide who had accompanied the group inside Panbari this morning, told The Telegraph over phone that the group started its trek inside Panbari around 6.30am. “The group was excited when they spotted an Asian paradise flycatcher, a rare bird species. Suddenly we came face to face with a huge elephant about 10 metres away. The elephant was staring at us and I sensed there could be trouble,” Rahman said.

The guide — attached to Adventure Gurudongma, a tour and travel agency — who has an experience of about four years, said he immediately directed the group to move away from the place but Robert was so excited that he insisted on waiting and started clicking photographs. “The forest guard stayed with him as I moved away along with the other members of the group,” Rahman said. He said he heard gunshots when they were about 30 metres away from the spot.

The forest guard, Subash Senapati, said the elephant charged at them a few minutes after the other members of the group left. “I fired three rounds in the air to scare away the elephant but it kept charging at us. I ran away shouting at the tourist to run, too. Then I heard a sound as if the elephant was crashing into trees and then I heard the screams. By the time I ran back, it was too late. I saw the lifeless body of the tourist all tangled up in creepers and climbers between two trees.”

The group of tourists, including a woman, arrived at Kaziranga on Sunday and was staying in a private resort at Kohora. They had arrived at Kaziranga after visiting Dibru-Saikhowa National Park in Tinsukia district and were scheduled to go to Arunachal Pradesh tomorrow.

Buragohain said the Dutch embassy has been informed about the incident. Goldbrach’s body has been sent for post-mortem at Golaghat Civil Hospital.