A 50-year-old rubber-tapper in Malaysia was gored to death by an elephant that turned on him after he teased it with a stalk of sugarcane, police said Saturday.

The elephant, part of a five-elephant show troupe from Thailand that was at a Buddhist temple in northern Kedah state, became enraged when Prawat Dinchu started teasing it, district police chief Mohd Shukri Awang told the Bernama news agency.

"The elephant gored Prawat with its tusks and stamped on him. He died on the way to hospital," Mohd Shukri said.

The report did not say when the man was killed. - AFP