Mosha the elephant was just seven months old when she stepped on
a landmine along the Thai-Myanmar border 10 years ago. She was
rushed to a hospital run by the Friends of the Asian Elephant
Foundation in Lampang province in northern Thailand, but they
couldn't save her leg, and it had to be amputated.
Two years later, surgeon Therdchai Jivacate gave her a
prosthetic leg – and a whole new life. As she has grown, he has
continued designing bigger and stronger prosthetic legs for her.
Mosha weighed only 600kg when she was given her first artificial
limb, but she now weighs more than 2,000kg. "The way she
walked was unbalanced and her spine was going to bend," Therdchai,
72, said of Mosha before receiving her latest leg. "She would have
died."
Reuters' photojournalist Athit Perawongmetha visited the
hospital to see Mosha and another elephant having their lives
transformed.
The Thai-Myanmar border is still dotted with landmines
left over from clashes between ethnic-minority rebels and the
Myanmar army dating back decades.
Motola is another elephant whose leg had to amputated thanks to
a landmine explosion. She too has been fitted with a prosthetic
leg.
Founded in 1993, the Friends of the Asian Elephant
Foundation hospital was the world's first elephant hospital and
currently has 17 patients.