An elephant has lashed out at a religious festival in India and raised concerns about its welfare after footage of the incident went viral.
The Thalappoli festival features a music-filled procession headed by richly caparisoned elephants around this time every year. One of the elephants, named Devidasan, was taking part in the event at the Bhagavathi Temple in the south Indian state of Kerala. During the procession, Devidasan went on a rampage and started picking up cars, scooters, tuktuks and vans with his trunk and destroying them. The clearly distressed animal threw several of the vehicles into the air multiple times before smashing them on the ground as panicked onlookers fled the area. Two mahouts (elephant trainers) were on the back of the animal throughout the ordeal trying to control him. It reportedly took several hours to finally bring Devidasan under control. Nobody was injured.
