At least 22 people died and 15 others sustained injuries after a raging elephant caused destruction through several towns in eastern India. Locals reportedly “climbed trees” and “slept on rooftops” to avoid the elephant in its 10-day rampage, the New York Post noted. The chaos began on New Year’s Day when the elephant killed a 35-year-old man in the village of Bandijhari in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district. Rogue elephant kills nearly two dozen people in 10-day rampage through eastern India https://t.co/Uze1UZf82V pic.twitter.com/LuCqE48k9s — New York Post (@nypost) January 20, 2026 More from the New York Post: Four days later, the animal killed five members of the same family in the nearby town of Sowan. The next day, it killed five more people in Babaria, including a married couple and their two children, the Times of India reported. The elephant moved mostly at night and covered as much as 25 miles a day, thwarting repeated attempts to tranquilize it, according to forest officials. The animal is believed to be in a state of musth — a natural but dangerous hormonal condition in male elephants marked by a surge in testosterone that can last weeks or even months. During musth, bulls become extremely aggressive, restless and unpredictable, often roaming long distances and attacking without warning. In the hardest-hit villages, nightfall brought panic, with residents refusing to sleep indoors and instead perching on rooftops or in trees, keeping watch for the sound of breaking walls or footsteps as the elephant roamed the forest edge. Some officials reportedly think the bull is in its mating phase. Search teams are still racing to contain the rampaging elephant before it kills again and causes further havoc in the area. TMZ shared footage of the wild elephant: A killer elephant — who is at-large — has left a total of 22 people dead over a 10 day period in India. Details: https://t.co/Q3njFcHsgJ : TIM pic.twitter.com/NzXY48gI4d — TMZ (@TMZ) January 19, 2026 TMZ shared further: Officials completely lost control of the situation — botching attempts to capture and tranquilize the animal. It all comes after they briefly drove the elephant into neighboring Odisha … only for local staff to force the killer elephant straight back to Chaibasa over safety concerns. Even specialist teams from other towns were rushed in to help … but they couldn’t stop it either, with one expert fatally injured while trying to manage the elephant.