Attempts to force the rhino out of Hetauda city by honking car horns and beating drums were unsuccessful, with the animal running from one area to another, government administrator Ram Prasad Thapaliya said.
Teams with tranquilizer guns were on their way to attempt to capture it, he said.
Thapaliya said the rhino fatally gored a 61-year-old woman on the outskirts of Hetauda, a city of about 135,000 people that borders a forested area. An unknown number of people were injured, he said.
It chased people around the main downtown market and the city bus station, he said.
“The whole town is terrorized by this animal. It even entered the local hospital, forcing terrified people to jump over the fences,” Thapaliya said.
Hetauda is about 50 miles south of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. - nypost
Fast Fact(s):
- Rhinos have been hunted nearly to extinction. Their horns are sometimes sold as trophies or decorations, but more often they are ground up and used in traditional Chinese medicine. The powder is often added to food or brewed in a tea in the belief that the horns are a powerful aphrodisiac, a hangover cure and treatment for fever, rheumatism, gout and other disorders, according to the International Rhino Foundation.
- Save the Rhino estimates that there were 500,000 rhinos across Africa and Asia at the beginning of the 20th century. Today, the group says, there are 29,000 rhinos in the wild. - livescience
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