Hungry wild elephant breaks into house to steal food in Thailand

This is the terrifying moment a hungry wild elephant broke into a villager's house to steal food.

CCTV footage shows the male tusker named Rodtang rifling through plastic bags to eat rice at a home in Buriram, Thailand, early morning on July 10.

The homeowner, village official Heung Jinpala, 59, woke up upon hearing the elephant shuffling through his garden.

He made loud noises, but 25-year-old Rodtang was unfazed and continued walking onto his patio.

The jumbo only left after Heung lit firecrackers to scare away the bull.

Heung said the incident has left residents worried that more elephants would come and destroy their property while looking for food.

He said: 'The same elephant caused damage in my home last year. That time, it had eaten rice husks and dragged sacks of rice husks out and scattered them all over the front of my garden. At that time, forestry officials helped me pay for repairs.

'Now, the villagers are feeling uneasy because the wild elephants seem to be venturing more often out of the forest, and are trying to invade the community to find food. The team monitoring and driving away the wild elephants has to work very hard, taking turns not sleeping.'

He urged the relevant agencies to take action as the locals are worried about continuous damage to their homes and crops.

As of 2023, there are an estimated 3,084-3,500 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.