This is the terrifying moment a wild elephant chased a tractor and attacked a watchtower in India.

Locals reportedly harassed the enraged beast after it emerged from Apalchand Forest, prompting it to charge at residents, the machine, and a building in Damdim, West Bengal, on February 1.

Footage shows the jumbo ambling toward the watchtower before ramming it with its head, causing the structure to shake subtly.

Frantic onlookers inside the tower can be seen climbing down, while others hold onto the corners to prevent themselves from falling.

Local media reported that the tusker suffered injuries to its head and trunk, while no one else sustained injuries in the encounter. The animal was later transported back to the forest.

Koustav Choudhury, executive director at SNAP Foundation, said: 'As it came out of the forest, it encountered an earthmover machine near one of the tea estates in the area. The machine driver, instead of staying calm, kept the machine on with the excavator bucket raised in a vertical position.

'The jumbo probably took it as a challenge and hit the machine with its head. Though it soon turned back and moved the other way, the machine and the locals present kept chasing it.

'We estimated that there were more than 6,000 people in the area,' he added.

The SNAP Foundation, along with the Gorumara Wildlife Division, announced that they would be filing an accident report against the earthmover driver and holding a high-level meeting on Monday with the local panchayat, tea estates, joint forest management committees, eco-development committees, and the local administration.

Koustav Choudhury added: 'The local administration should explain the reason for the failure of crowd management.'

Wildlife experts speculated that the jumbo was in ‘musth'—a hormonal cycle in male elephants that causes behavioural and physiological changes.

Gorumara DFO Dwijpratim Sen said that since morning, foresters had been struggling to drive the elephant back into the forest.

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.