In a sorrowful incident, an elephant died and three others were injured after a circus truck crashed in southeastern Spain. The lorry carrying five elephants overturned on the A30 in Pozo Canada near Albacete on Monday afternoon. While one injured its leg, three others had minor cuts and one escaped uninjured. The minorly injured animals wandered into the nearby fields until help arrived. The wounded animals were immediately treated by vets.

Thereafter the motorway, which was busy with Easter holiday traffic was closed as emergency services reached the place for rescue. It was closed for around two hours as people firefighters tried to lift the dead animal with a crane.

Video footage that emerged after the incident shows emergency services using a crane to lift the dead animal from the road in Pozo Canada.

Albacete tweeted a photo of an official inspecting the situation as the animals were taken to safety. The surviving elephants were winched onto another truck and removed.

Here are pictures of the accident:

Here is the video the dead elephant being taken away on a crane:

They tweeted saying, "Our Albacete traffic comrades today, attending to some elephants who were victims of an accident in Pozo Canada (unfortunately one of the pachyderms died)."

As per reports, the head of the government's traffic department, Gregorio Serrano took to Twitter saying that the truck could have overturned while trying to overtake another vehicle. Animal rights groups said that the accident is another example of how animals used for performances in circus suffer.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 04, 2018 09:22 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).