A hungry elephant smashed open a factory door to steal grain in India.

The jumbo was seen wandering into the Food Corporation of India compound and making a beeline for one of the warehouses where the food supplies were stored in Karnataka on April 2.

Footage shows the animal ambling towards the building as panicked locals and workers followed it from a safe distance.

It then used its trunk to push and wreck open the shutter of one of the warehouses. It pulled out a sack of rice and tore open it with a kick.

The elephant remained unfazed despite workers trying to scare it off. It took two mouthfuls of the grains before dragging the opened sack in the opposite direction, seemingly trying to leave.

Onlooker Naresh Nambisan said the authorities tried to ease elephant food scarcity by making water pits.

He said: ‘They do it wherever possible. In Gundalpet forest where there is scarcity of water presently, authorities have dug a pit & filling the pit with water through tankers. This forest is at the border of Karnataka and Kerala.'

The sub-continent has at least 30,000 wild elephants - more than any other country and approximately 60 per cent of the world's entire Asian elephant population.

While conservation efforts and elephant corridors are being established, the issue of elephant hunger persists in some regions due to habitat loss, conflicts with humans, and climate factors such as drought.