Campers were terrified when a hungry wild elephant emerged from the forest and searched through their tents for food.

Footage shows tourists fleeing from the area where the jumbo was busy looking for snacks at a campsite in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.

They had built their shelters in the open area surrounded by patches of trees where the animal wandered out of at Khao Yai National Park.

A park ranger stayed close to the tusker to keep visitors safe and guide the tusker back into its habitat.

Thailand has up to 3,500 elephants in the wild. The population has been increasing in recent years, but it is still a fraction of the estimated 300,000 wild elephants that lived in the country at the beginning of the 20th century.

The main threats to wild elephants in Thailand are habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and conflict with humans.