A villager was violently trampled to death by an elephant with the beast dumping his mangled corpse in a pond in Thailand.

Nirun Paenfai, 52, was setting eel traps in a swampy area near a sugarcane field when he encountered the lone elephant in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The terrified resident tried to flee but was chased down and brutally crushed by the pachyderm. The jungle behemoth was said to have dragged his body to a pond, where he was discovered by residents in Khon Kaen province later in the afternoon.

Si Chomphu Police Station arrived at the scene with a rescue team to collect his remains.

A police spokesman said: 'The body was discovered face down in the pond, unclothed, and later identified as Mr. Nirun Paenfai, 52, from Wang Khon Daeng Village in Khon Kaen. He had bruises, fractures to both arms and legs, and lacerations on his face. He was taken to Si Chomphu Hospital for further examination.'

Authorities also found Nirun's clothes strewn at the scene, along with muddy elephant footprints and flattened sugarcane stalks, indicating he had been chased.

Village headman Khomsan Thumkhot said three wild elephants were earlier seen in the area.

He said: 'An elephant-pushing unit from Phu Kradueng National Park and community leaders successfully pushed the elephants into the forest last night before calling off the mission at around 2 am. They checked the area nearby and found no residents at 3am.'

Nirun was believed to have arrived at the pond in the early morning, when wild elephants usually venture out to forage, before being attacked.

Wild officials said several elephants remained in Khon Kaen after they broke away from their herd in Loei province. They were monitoring the jumbos and alerting residents to their movements.

As of 2024, there are an estimated 4,013–4,422 wild elephants in Thailand. The population has been increasing in recent years, but it is still a fraction of the estimated 300,000 wild elephants that lived in Thailand 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.