A mother never forgets: Elephant spends 11 hours desperately trying to pull her baby free from muddy well – before villagers lend her a helping hand

This is the heart-wrenching moment a mother elephant desperately tried to pull her baby from a well after, staying by their side for 11 hours.

The determined mum refused to leave her calf, first using her trunk and then her feet in a bid to haul her precious baby to safety.

Unfortunately the frantic mother elephant made matters worse by accidentally pushing more mud into the well and almost smothering the baby, which was trapped from 9pm until 8am the following morning.

But thankfully the tiny elephant was eventually freed when people living near the Chatra district in India, where the incident happened, rushed to the scene after hearing the distressed cries.

Kind-hearted villagers deterred the mother and used the time to remove some of the soil stopping her from grabbing the calf.