Tourist dies after being gored while washing elephant at Thai sanctuary
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A Spanish tourist has died after being attacked by an elephant she was bathing in Thailand. Blanca Ojanguren Garcia, 22, was washing the animal at the Koh Yao Elephant Care & House, a sactuary popular with British holidaymakers, when it gored her with its tusk.
![[Tourist dies after being attacked by elephant at Thai sanctuary]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_234948790-8990.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Experts believe the elephant could have lashed out after becoming stressed by the pressure of living and interacting with tourists outside its ecosystem, the newspaper Clarin reports. Washing and bathing with elephants are popular tourist activities in the country.
![[Tourist dies after being attacked by elephant at Thai sanctuary]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_234948801-da43.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Blanca was on a university exchange programme in Taiwan as part of the fifth year of a Law and International Relations Degree at the University of Navarra, based in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona. She was born and grew up in the city of Valladolid 200 miles south-west of Pamplona.
Respected local paper El Norte de Castilla said she came from a military family. Other Spanish media reports said her boyfriend was a soldier who witnessed the attack. The Spanish Foreign Ministry confirmed the tragedy, saying: ‘We can confirm the tragic death in an accident of a Spanish tourist.
‘The Spanish Consulate in Bangkok is in contact with the victim’s relatives and is offering all the necessary consular assistance, as is normal in these types of circumstances.’. Ko Yao Yai where the incident happened is a Thai island in the Andaman Sea, halfway between Phuket and Krabi.
