On 9th of October 2019 night, about 65 elephant herd crossed the Eastern railway track ,3 were hit and one was entangled in the engine and died after runover the Meenagaya intercity train near to Welikanda. Similar 3 incidents were happened in last Sep, Oct of 2018, near this area and 7 elephants were died due to train collision in the same place. Train related elephant deaths have been spiking now in Sri Lanka as the shrinking of elephant habitacts due to human encroachments. The Department of Wildlife conservation statistics show that 18 elephants were killed in 2018, and 6 elephants died for 2019 up to now by train collision. Meantime, 49 Elephants have knocked down by trains from 2005-2011 and 73 elephants were died from 2012-2018.

In the Eastern railway track, from Maho to Batticaloa via Galoya and Galoya to Trincomalee are the major vulnerable areas for the train -elephant collisions. Most of these tragical train-elephants accidents happened in Palugaswewa, Galoya,Manampitiya,Welikanda and Punani in Colombo-Batticaloa railway track. It is also identified Kitululuwa area as the major elephant train collision point in Galoya to Trincomalee railway line.

Last year government appointed a committee to study and report on issues of the Eastern railway track elephant-train collisions. Though the appointed committee submitted  the Report prepared by gathering information, observation according to scietific methods, it has left to dust. Not yet taken any sustainable conservation measures to overcome this tragical accidents. It seems tobe slowly killing off these endangered,empathetic gentle giants with responsible authorities' clear negligence and ignorance in to a state of extinction! The Sri Lankan elephant, a sub specie of Asian elephant is being erased from the Earth very soon, if not responsible authorities take the immediate actions to conserve them in their natural habitats! Having annual death rate of 350 this endangered elephants remain in their habitats with various life threatening human activities even within forest reserves of wildlife department and forest department.

Thus, we request the Ministry of Tourism Development, Wildlife and Christian Affairs to take immediate action to: Avoid elephant -train collision s in railway tracks which laying through elephant habitats and dence forest areas. Wildlife Department has earned billions of money by showing these innocent pachyderms to the world. So the department can utilize those money for the longterm wellbeingness and conservation of these animals. 

• Elephant-train accidents preventing measures
• Short term solutions 

�Reducing the operation of trains during the night to the barest minimum is one way to avoid this situation.Most accidents were happened in the night as the elephants are roaming at night in search of foods and water.

�Railway authorities should see to it that the speed of the trains that pass through forests in which wild animals reside, A minimum speed of 30 kilometres/hour is to be maintained when trains pass through forests and elephants habitats at night. Utmost care should be taken at vulnerable sections.

• Long term sustainable solutions 

�Monitor the railway tracks which lay through the elephant habitats, corridors and identify the elephant pathways which railway track crosses, observe and gather the information of seasonal elephant migrating patterns, their water sourses and food sourses availability in the area and the places that previous accidents happened and identify the exact places of elephant crossings on the railway track.

�At places where elephant corridors and railway tracks intersect, the construction of underpasses can be planned to enable the animals to cross over without any difficulty.It has been revealed that Elephants are prefer to use underpases than overpasses. 

�Excluding the sections of track used by elephants to cross, the remaining parts should be fenced and elephant-proof trenches dug out, with the idea of preventing them from crossing the vulnerable stretches. Fence can be a electric fence, bio fence or both. 

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