Early Saturday, a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd of elephants, resulting in the deaths of seven elephants and injuring a calf.

The Rajdhani Express, carrying around 650 passengers, was traveling through Assam when its driver spotted approximately 100 elephants crossing the tracks and applied the emergency brakes. 

Despite this effort, the train struck several of the endangered animals, the Associated Press reported.

The collision caused the engine and five coaches to derail. 

None of the passengers, who were traveling from Sairang in Mizoram state to New Delhi, were harmed in the incident, AP reported.

“We disconnected the coaches that were not derailed, and the train proceeded to New Delhi,” Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told AP. “Around 200 passengers who were in the five derailed coaches have been moved to Guwahati via a different train.”

Veterinarians later attended to the elephants. 

They were scheduled to be buried later that Saturday, according to AP.

Assam is home to an estimated 7,000 wild Asiatic elephants, and train-related deaths have remained an ongoing issue. 

Since 2020, at least a dozen elephants have been killed on railway tracks in the state, AP reported.

Asiatic elephants are classified as endangered, with only an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 currently remaining in the wild, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.