This is the touching moment an elephant calf climbs out of an abandoned 40-feet well.

The one-year-old female calf had spent 12 hours inside and was too exhausted to climb the steep path that had been dug to help it get out.

It skidded down a few times while crawling up and stopped in exhaustion for some time.

When it looked like it was going to give up, the calf mustered its last ounce of energy, and climbed out, prompting a large crowd of onlookers to break into an applause.

The incident occurred at a forest in Dhenkanal, Odisha, India on June 12.

A few residents of Jhumpudia village noticed that the calf had fallen into an abandoned well on the night of June 11.

The next morning, alerted by villagers, forest officials brought in a digger and excavated a path out of the well to rescue the calf.

The exhausted animal started to climb the path but kept slipping down. But as the villagers cheered it on, it climbed out showing impressive grit.

A local villager Ramakantha Das said: “It took a lot of time, nearly four hours, to complete the rescue. The impatient calf kept coming in the way of the digger slowing down the work.”

A forest official said the calf had been separated from its herd. “We will try to send it back to its herd,” he said.