Six elephants including three calves died in India's north-eastern state of Meghalaya after getting drunk on rice beer and running through a paddy field where they were electrocuted, officials and residents said Tuesday.

The incident happened in the village of Chandan Nukat, about 250 kilometres west of Shillong, the state capital, on Sunday night.

The 40-strong herd sniffed out the aroma of rice beer being brewed by local tribal people. The elephants, who have a taste for rice beer, took apart casks kept outside by local villagers and gorged on the drink following which they ran through a nearby paddy field.

The field had an electrical pole running through it. "One of the elephants tried rubbing his back against an electric pole passing through the paddy field. The pole was unable to withstand the animal's weight, and it caved in, bringing the elephant in direct contact with the live wire", Dipu Marak, a local wildlife activist, told the IANS news agency, reports Earth Times.

Other elephants tried to come to the rescue and were electrocuted in the process. Casualty would have been higher if the local villagers, who woke up to the elephants' cries, had not chased the rest of the animals away.

India's north-east region has the highest concentration of wild Asiatic elephants in the world.

"It's great to have such a huge number of elephants, but the increasing man-elephant conflict following the shrinkage in their habitat due to the growing human population is giving us nightmares," said Pradyut Bordoloi, former Assam Forest and Environment Minister, according to the Canadian Press.

Three years ago in a similar incident in the region, four wild elephants had died.