Elephants rescued from mud pond in Thai national park

Six elephant calves who were trapped in a mud pond in Thailand's Thap Lan National Park were rescued by the rangers on Thursday. The rescuers took five hours to manually dig a path for the calves to clamber out.

Bangkok: Rangers at a national park in northeast Thailand have rescued six baby elephants that were trapped in a mud pond.

The elephant calves had been struggling to climb over the slippery banks of the pond.

Park officials at Thap Lan National Park said their rescuers took five hours on Thursday to manually dig a path for the calves to clamber out.

The rangers said they didn't know how the elephants became trapped in the pond.

Elephants play an important part in Thailand's culture and are the country's national animal.