This is the hair-raising moment that a wild elephant chased a vegetable seller’s van in Thailand as she tried to reverse away.
Footage showed the huge animal approaching Rungthip Ketpradit’s van in Chachoengsao province, Thailand, on January 23 attempting to get the vegetables she was transporting.
The footage begins with Ms Ketpradit filming as the elephant sauntered across the street in the south Asian country.
As the elephant approached the vehicle, Ms Ketpradit reversed to keep her distance.
But to her bemusement, the animal followed her down the road and only relented when her car outran the beast.
Luckily, no one was reported hurt in the incident, including the animal itself.
Ms Ketpradit told reporters: ‘I think the elephant was trying to eat the vegetable kept in the back of my pickup truck.
‘I was scared but it didn’t hurt us.’
Thailand has an estimated 2,000 Asian elephants living in the wild but there is often conflict when they come into contact with humans on roads and in villages.
A similar number of elephants are kept captive where they work in zoos and are hired out for religious festivals and weddings.
Conservationists even believe that some elephants have even evolved to prefer food from humans driving passing cars over the jungle food.
Though they can seem playful and cute, elephants can pose a serious risk to humans in Thailand.
In 2019, an angry elephant charged at a group of tourists on a tour of a Thailand river, sending them screaming in to the water.
The video, filmed by one of the party on the raft, in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, started with the group being propelled down the gentle river by a guide.
They chatted and took pictures of their stunning surroundings, but after a few seconds, an elephant was seen ahead and used its trunk to thrash at the water.
It is understood that everyone escaped unharmed in that incident.
