elephant charges, knocks tourist from safari canoe, and holds her underwater

The elephant pushing a tourist down after charging the boats in Botswana (Picture: Faceboook/Namushanawa Nyamba: Conservation National Parks)

Tourists on safari could have drowned after an elephant charged their small canoes and held a woman underwater.

Footage of the incident showed the bull elephant run directly towards the group,who were paddling in the shallow Okovango Delta in Botswana on Saturday.

They could be seen as the huge creature ran directly towards them,apparently viewing them as a threat to the female and two calves nearby.

He then flipped two of the gondola-style makoro canoes widely used in the area,plunging four people into the water,then held one of the tourists down in the river with his musculur trunk.

It is thought the woman only survived as the elephant lost her under the murky water and stopped trying to trample her after ten seconds.

As the other elephants pass by,the bull appears to feel the threat has been neutralised,and then leaves the tourists alone.

Three companies that run Makoro tourist canoes on the Delta would not comment on who ran the trip,but one receptionist said: ‘It was a group made up of British and Americans visitors.

‘There was a lot of expensive camera equipment and phones lost or damaged but it is a blessing nobody was badly hurt but wild animals can be very unpredictable.’

A former South African game ranger who was shown the videos said: ‘They had a very lucky escape indeed because all four could just have easily been killed by that angry bull.

The bull elephant held one tourist underwater (Picture: Faceboook/Namushanawa Nyamba: Conservation National Parks)

‘The woman was lucky not have been gored but if it had held her down for another few seconds it would probably have drowned her so she can praise the Lord he didn’t.

‘There are thousands of these dug out traditional Makoro canoes on the Delta poling tourists through the reeds to view elephants,hippo,birds,buck and crocodiles.

‘This bull attacked because it was protecting its young and it seems the guides misjudged how close they could take the tourists safely and made a potentially fatal mistake.

‘There could well have been the need for four body bags if lady luck had not favoured them.’

It comes after a similar attack in the crocodile-infested Okovango in July,when a female elephant attempted to flip a boat full of tourists after their skipper came too close for comfort.

The elephant looms over the tourists before flipping their boat (Picture: Faceboook/Namushanawa Nyamba: Conservation National Parks)

In July,two elderly tourists from the UK and New Zealand were killed by an elephant while on a walking safari in Zambia.

Easton Taylor,68,and Alison Taylor,67,were charged by the elephant while it was with its calf at South Luangwa National Park.

Two months earlier,a 68-year-old woman was trampled to death by a heard of elephants in South Africa.

She had been staying at Sirheni Bushveld Camp in Kruger National Park when she took a stroll outside just before 11pm and encountered a herd of elephants with calves.

In June last year a US tourist was thrown out of a vehicle by an elephant and trampled to death,also in Zambia.

Juliana Gle Tourneau,64,of New Mexico,was watching a herd of elephants near the Maramba Cultural Bridge in Livingstone on Wednesday when one of the animals attacked.