Officials in Rangjuli, Assam, used an excavator to dig free an elephant that was trapped in a watery pit.

Footage shared by Divisional Forest Officer, Jitendra Kumar, shows the vehicle digging a path for the animal to climb.

The elephant managed to escape the pit before walking back into a nearby forest.

An elephant was rescued from a watery pit in northeastern India's Assam.

The incident reportedly happened in Rangjuli range of Goalpara district on December 13.

Visuals showed an excavator being used to carve out a path in the pit for the elephant to come out. The pachyderm stood at a distance while the excavator dug up the ground at one side of the pit. Soon, the elephant walked over to the area of the pit where a path was paved and then climbed out of the pit and into safety.

It then slowly wandered off into a bushy area.

The rescue operation was headed by Deputy RFO Sarat Das and took about an hour.