Moment enraged elephant charges at boat filled with terrified Brit safari tourists and lifts the vessel up with its tusks in croc-infested Botswana river

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

This is the terrifying moment a furious elephant charged at and lifted a boat filled with British tourists in a crocodile-infested river in Botswana.
Footage shared online showed the boat's skipper taking the craft in too close to a female elephant that was feeding on the reeds in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, forcing him to beat a hasty retreat when it began to charge.
The guide appeared confident whilst bantering with guests as they reversed back down a narrow water channel but then their engine appears to have cut out.
As the elephant closes the gap, the guide looks back confidently over his shoulder and shouts out to the tourists: 'When she comes close we are going to zoom forward'.
But when he turns back he is shocked to see how quickly the elephant has narrowed the gap and quickened its pace with the sole intention of overturning the intruding boat.
As she trumpets her anger loudly the guide claps and shouts: 'We can hear you!'.
Then he jumps up clapping loudly and shouting at the enraged elephant as its tusks hook under the front of the aluminium flat-bottomed boat and lifts it up into the air.
The tourists fall off their benches and drop their cameras as the front of the tourist boat heads straight for the sky being lifted-up by the 5-tonne female by its two ivory tusks.
But as it nears the point of no return, the tusks slide out from under the flimsy craft and it slams down onto the river which is infested with crocodiles and home to hippos.
The infuriated elephant slams her tusks into the flimsy river craft three more times, but fortunately they don't sink the boat or overturn it before she breaks off the attack.
One tourist can be heard shouting 'Oh no' and another says 'Holy s***'.
When the elephant fails to capsize the boat and throw the tourists in with the crocodiles and turns away one tourist says 'Was that meant to happen?' and gets the answer 'No'.
One terrified tourist exclaimed 'Golly',while another said: 'Oh my goodness'.
It is not known which company took the tourists out but it is known nobody was injured.
The charging elephant would have weighed 5-tons and stood 11ft tall at the shoulder and the world's largest mammals kill an estimated 500 people every year in Africa.