How fast can elephants run?

Date: 1996-06-17 from Rupal Majmudar in India

Question

Wie schnell laufen Elefanten?

Answer

Some old records state around 30 km/hour. The only tests I heard about though, were made with 42 elephants on 30 meter distance in Surin, Thailand 10 times a day, which gave a record of 24 km per hour for the fastest elephant, while only three elephants ran faster than 15 km/hour. I doubt that you can run away from a attacking elephant... But since they are walking on "pillars", they can only keep this speed for a very short time. At speed over ap 16 km ph they change from a fast walking to a "jumping" running, where at least one foot is on the ground.