A herd of wild elephants coming from Garo-hills of Indian Meghalaya state badly damaged transplanted aman paddy on about 50 acres of lands at Jadurchar village in Dhanua Kamalpur union under Bakshiganj upazila of the district in the last two days.

A herd of 80 to 90 wild elephants entered the village in search of food on Monday and Tuesday night and started eating the standing crop.

The elephants stayed on the paddy fields for almost the whole night and damaged the crops on around 50 acres of land belonging to over one hundred farmers, affected farmers said.

The villagers passed sleepless nights and made frantic efforts to drive away the elephants by making loud sounds, lighting fires and beating drums, said Mostafa Kamal, chairman of the union parishad.

During the rampage at the village on Tuesday night, the wild elephants damaged the houses of Parvin Begum, Abdul Hakim and Abu Hanif, the chairman said, adding that at least 50 families were forced to leave their houses to escape from the sudden attack by the wild elephants.

Bakshiganj Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Abu Hassan Siddique said the villagers were warned to keep them safe from the elephants' attack.

Members of the Elephant Response Team were deployed to drive away the herd of wild elephants from the locality, the UNO added.