DOZENS of wild elephants rampaged through a village in Indonesia's Riau province, terrifying residents and damaging houses and crops, officials said Friday. 'Some 70 elephants destroyed more than 23 semi-permanent houses in Lubuk Kandis hamlet,' Iwin Karsiawan from Riau's nature conservation agency told AFP.The rampage occurred over the course of three days last week. He said the new communities springing up in the jungle-clad region to farm crops, mostly palm oil, were encroaching on the animals' habitat and resulting in clashes between man and beast. 'No one was killed or injured in the incident but half of the 40 families living in the hamlet left for their safety,' he said.
Conservationists say the elephants' habitat is being taken over by settlements, plantations and industrial forest estates.