Hippo Kills Tourist During Selfie Time
Medical team immediately rushed Chuang to the Naivasha District Hospital, where he was declared brought dead.
A tourist from Taiwan was attacked and killed by a hippopotamus in Kenya. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has confirmed the attack, which took place at Lake Naivasha, which is about 90 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
The incident occurred when 65-year-old Chang Ming Chuang was taking pictures of the hippopotamus along with a colleague. The hippo was on the shores of the lake when the animal attacked the tourist.
Medical team immediately rushed Chuang to the Naivasha District Hospital, where he was declared brought dead. Though Chang Ming Chuang's colleague 62-year-old Wu Peng Te survived the attack with minor injuries and is now recovering at the Naivasha Sopa Resort. Kenya Wildlife Service is now tracking the hippo, which escaped after attacking the human.
Gideon Kibunja, Head of Criminal Investigations of Rift Valley, said, “The man was bitten on the chest and his injuries were serious and he died minutes after he was retrieved from the lake.”
On the other hand, a Wildlife Service spokesman Paul Udoto said, the circumstances under which the attack on two Taiwanese tourists happened is still not are not clear. As he said the attacks on tourists are very rare because usually the tourists are protected by tourist guides.
He also said that in the area the hippos and the lone buffaloes stay, is dangerous to humans, as there have been many attacks in which civilians and even forest rangers have lost their lives. The 2 deaths, this time make it to a total 6 deaths, the number of people killed by hippos around Lake Naivasha so far this year.
The attack on the tourist that took place on the edge of Lake Naivasha situated in the Kenya’s Rift Valley. After a few hours of the incident, a local fisherman was mauled to death by a hippopotamus in the same area.
According to National Geographic, hippopotamuses are known as one of the most dangerous animals on the planet, which can snap a canoe into two pieces with their strong jaws. Every year hippopotamuses kill more than 500 people in Africa and they can run at the same speed as humans for short distances, when they are faced with danger. They are very aggressive, and with sharp teeth a normal hippo weighs upto 2,750kg and are known for killing people in Africa. But tourism in Kenya is flourishing with earning of $1.2bn (£950m) last year, with the record 1.4 million international tourist arrivals.
