A herd of wild elephants destroyed a dozen houses at Neulapur of Babai Municipality in Bardiya on Wednesday night. The elephants entered Balati and Baganaha settlements in the middle of the night and wreaked destruction. 

Dharma Raj Sharma, chairman of buffer zone community forest in Balati, said the elephants destroyed nine houses in Balati and three in Baganaha. 

A Nepal Army team was called to chase the elephants away, but to no avail. More than a dozen shots were fired into the air to scare off the marauding pack of pachyderms, but they were unperturbed, the villagers said.

They left on their own on Thursday morning.