Four elephants and their mahouts have joined the search for a 2-year-old boy from Myanmar who has been missing for a week, as hundreds of rescuers combed through a sugarcane field for traces of the missing child.
Sului Piew, a son of migrant workers from Myanmar, went missing on Dec 17 when he went out to play near the sugarcane plantation where his parents work.
Nimit Wanchaithanawong, the governor of Suphan Buri province, said Sului's family was alerted of his disappearance when his 3-year-old friend told her parents that she saw Sului being abducted.
"We set up a search operation centre near the field and we will continue with the search,'' Mr Nimit, who is in charge of the search operation, said Monday. "It's been more than a week and the child is so young. These few days will be critical.''
The search for Sului officially began last Wednesday and has involved hundreds of volunteer rescue workers, police officers and soldiers who have been deployed to search an 80-acre field of around 2m-high sugarcane plants. A team of divers has also searched nearby ponds.
The latest to offer assistance to the search operation are the mahouts and their elephants from a neighbouring province.
Laithongrien Meepan, the elephants' owner, said the animals would be able to scour the vast plantation for signs of life because they can sense the presence of life.
"If we find a child, or dogs lying around, they know not to step on them,'' Mr Laithongrien said. "Mahouts can look out into the distance and elephants will raise their trunks to smell.''
