A 46-year-old animal keeper was killed accidentally by an elephant in a safari park in Shanghai, east China, on Thursday, sources with the safari park confirmed on Friday.

Li Guohua, the animal keeper, was suddenly thrown away by an Asian elephant using its trunk when he was helping veterinarians to treat this ill elephant at about 8:00 p.m. Thursday.

Li was thrown onto the guardrail in the safari park and died, an official in charge of the Shanghai Safari Park told Xinhua.

The official said that the elephant was born in the Shanghai safari park in 1999 and has been taken care of by a group of keepers headed by Li ever since then.

The elephant is about 3.2 meters tall and weighs about five tons.

Cause of the accident is being investigated.

(Xinhua News Agency June 9, 2006)