NEWS - Land Mine Hurts Elephant in

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Subject: NEWS - Land Mine Hurts Elephant in Myanmar

Land Mine Hurts Elephant in Myanmar

 .c The Associated Press

By THAKSINA KHAIKAEW

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Thai veterinarians may have to amputate an
elephant's leg up to the knee and fit the animal with a prosthesis after
he stepped on a land mine in the jungles of neighboring Myanmar.

The 38-year-old pachyderm, named Motola, trod on a land mine a week ago
as it was foraging for food on the rugged Thai-Myanmar border during a
break from hauling logs out of the forest.

The blast shredded the elephant's left foot. Then the animal had to
hobble through the mountains out of Myanmar, which is also known as
Burma, and then along sealed roads for three days to reach an elephant
hospital at Lampang in northern Thailand.

By the time Motola had completed the 60-mile trek, the flesh of his foot
had started to decompose.

``His wounds are very dirty. We have given him injections to stop
bleeding and infection,'' Preecha Puangkham, a veterinarian, said today.

If the foot does not start to heal in three days they will have to
amputate up to the knee, Preecha said.

Meanwhile, vets have administered jumbo-size doses of painkillers. They
also plan to hoist up the three-ton elephant with a crane or pulley to
take the weight off his foot.

The elephant hospital at Lampang, 317 miles north of Bangkok, has years
of experience caring for wounded and maltreated pachyderms. Some have
been fed amphetamines to make them work faster, or even hit by vehicles
on Thailand's highways.

But Motola's wounds, inflicted in a renegade country strewn with
explosives by ethnic rebels and Myanmar government forces, were the
worst the vets at the sanctuary had ever seen.

If they do have to amputate, Preecha hoped to fit the animal with a
prosthesis. He said he didn't think such a procedure had ever been done
in Thailand.

AP-NY-08-21-99 0535EDT