This is the heartwarming moment a stranded wild elephant was rescued from a reservoir in southern Thailand.

The five-tonne jumbo named Plai Rungthiwa fell into the 30ft deep pit while wandering through a forest in Chumphon.

Villagers found the 42-year-old pachyderm struggling to stay afloat when they arrived to collect water on July 19. It was unable to climb out as it kept slipping on the rubber-lined embankment.

Village official Yongyuth Thawichsri said he called wildlife rescuers, who then dispatched an excavator to dig a ramp on the edge of the reservoir.

They drained the water to allow the jungle behemoth to stand on the bottom of the pool.

Footage shows the heavy machinery ploughing through the earth to make a path for the exhausted elephant.

Plai Rungthiwa later walked up the incline, pausing briefly to look back at its rescuers before disappearing into the jungle.

Sunthorn, the owner of the garden located near a wildlife sanctuary, said: 'The elephant came into my garden yesterday and left in the evening but when I returned at around 11 this morning, I found it had fallen into the reservoir.

'It must have been there for a while because it looked tired, and its trunk and ears were pale from being in the water too long.'

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.