The passenger train landed after hitting a flock of elephants near the wildlife reserve in Central Sri Lanka in the early hours of Thursday.
Although no injuries were reported among passengers, six elephants were killed from an accident in Habarana, east of the capital of Colomb.
Two injured elephants were treated, police said, noting that this is the worst such accident in the wildlife the country saw, AFP reported.
It is not uncommon for trains to run into the herds of elephants on Sri Lanka, where the victims on both sides of the encounters with the human layers are among the highest in the world.
Last year, more than 170 people and nearly 500 elephants were killed in the overall meetings of the human elephant – and about 20 elephants kill trains annually, according to local media.
The elephants, whose natural habitats are affected by the deprivation of forests and decrease in resources, are increasingly straying into the places of human activity.
Some invited trains drivers to slow down and sound the horns of the train to warn the animals in front of the railway lines.
In 2018, the pregnant elephant and her two calves were similarly died in Habarani after the train hit him. The three of them were part of a larger herd that crossed the railway railway at dawn.
Last October another train ran into a flock in Minnery, about 25 km (15 miles) from Habarana, killing two elephants and injuring himself.
In Sri Lanka, 7,000 wild elephants are estimated, where animals, appreciated by his Buddhist majority, were protected by law. Killing an elephant crime is punishable by prison or fine.
