Three wild elephants strayed away from forests and entered a residential area in Sri Lanka's North Central Province on December 7. The incident took place near Anuradhapura's Kekirawa Central College.

A video witnessing the three jumbos show them ambling through the woods adjacent to a residential area. They later make their way into a swamp and relax for at least 10 hours before officials could chase them away into the forests.

Authorities can be seen controlling traffic on a busy highway adjacent to the swamp the elephants were unwinding in. A series of footprints can be seen across the width of the road that the jumbos used to return to the forest.

Two of the elephants were identified as Revatha and Mangala while one of them was a wild elephant. They had arrived from Kalawewa reserve. On being informed, the Civil Defence Force and the Kekirawa police jointly chased the animals away.

The Forest Department was on a strike and could not report to the scene. Kekirawa police were handed over the duty of controlling traffic to safely chase away the huge mammals.