BANGKOK, Thailand — An elephant trampled its handler to ***** and ran off with two Russian tourists — a mother and her 9-year-old daughter — who were riding it during a trek in southern Thailand, ****** said Monday.

Rescue teams tracked down the elephant about 3 kilometres (1.8 miles) away and tranquilized it to rescue the tourists clinging to its back, ****** Lt. Col. Narong Laksanawimol said.

“It took almost three hours for the elephant to calm down completely. We had to tie it to a tree,” Narong said by telephone.

He said the animal began attacking the 60-year-old handler about 15 minutes after the start of what was supposed to be a scenic ride for the tourists near a waterfall in the city of Phang Nga. The handler’s ******* body was found in a creek.

He said the male elephant had never attacked anyone since it began working for a tourist company two years ago, adding that the animal was in musth, a state of aggressive ****** excitement.