KANCHANABURI: Four members of a wild elephant watch team in Thong Pha Phum district were injured, two seriously, when ping pong bombs they were using to scare off a herd of four elephants were set off accidentally on Saturday.
Anont Thanomwong, the team leader, said he sent a group of four members out on a pickup truck to a forest trail near Ban Nong Daeng in tambon Tha Khanun, where the four wild elephants were sighted, to prevent them from rampaging across villagers' plantations.
About 5pm, the men encountered the elephants at close range. The animals charged at the truck, prompting a team member to light the fuse of a ping pong bomb with the intention of scaring the animals away with the loud noise of the explosion.
The lit fuse accidentally fell into a whole bag of ping pong bombs in the back, causing a series of deafening explosions. The accident succeeded in driving the elephants away but injured four men on the truck.