Walking Tall
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Thai elephants injured in landmine explosions given prosthetic legs
Good news for elephants injured by some of the thousands of landmines on the Thai-Myanmar border.
Mosha the elephant was just seven months old when she stepped on a landmine along the Thai-Myanmar border 10 years ago. She was rushed to a hospital run by the Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation in Lampang province in northern Thailand, but they couldn't save her leg, and it had to be amputated.
Two years later, surgeon Therdchai Jivacate gave her a prosthetic leg – and a whole new life. As she has grown, he has continued designing bigger and stronger prosthetic legs for her. Mosha weighed only 600kg when she was given her first artificial limb, but she now weighs more than 2,000kg. "The way she walked was unbalanced and her spine was going to bend," Therdchai, 72, said of Mosha before receiving her latest leg. "She would have died."
Reuters' photojournalist Athit Perawongmetha visited the hospital to see Mosha and another elephant having their lives transformed.
The Thai-Myanmar border is still dotted with landmines left over from clashes between ethnic-minority rebels and the Myanmar army dating back decades.
Motola is another elephant whose leg had to amputated thanks to a landmine explosion. She too has been fitted with a prosthetic leg.
Founded in 1993, the Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation hospital was the world's first elephant hospital and currently has 17 patients.
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Great!
Any effort to clear the landmines?