This is the incredible moment a mother rhino took on a much bigger elephant that tried to chase the pair away from a waterhole.

The footage was filmed at the Kruger National Park in South Africa by Krishna Tummalapalli, an interventional cardiologist from India.

The rhino and her baby were drinking water from the pond when an elephant approached them.

Immediately, the older rhino moved towards the elephant, adopting a seemingly threatening pose.

This seemed to enrage the elephant who immediately rammed the rhino and, as the two adults struggled, the baby rhino fell between them, screaming.

Eventually, the baby rhino managed to run away from the fight.

After being dunked in the water by the elephant, the mother rhino was also able to break free, leading its baby away from the scene.

The action didn’t stop there however, as the elephant gave chase and ran after the rhinos for a few moments.

Krishna said: ‘We were on a family trip to South Africa in early June 2019. We had been hoping to visit Africa for quite some time and needless to say, it didn’t disappoint.

‘We went to the Kruger National Park and on our second day of safari – around 5 in the afternoon – at Shishangeni Lodge, I managed to take this video near the watering hole.

‘Even without this incredible sighting, it was shaping out to be a very good Safari. We saw lots of Zebra herds and took a cute video of a rhino taking a mud bath.

The baby rhino was trampled underfoot as its mother was charged by the African elephant

The two rhinos had been drinking some water when the elephant approached them and a fight started

The African elephant chased away the rhino and her baby, who ran off in sheer panic at the Kruger National Park

There were lots to see even before we got to witness what was probably the most intense occurrence. We went to the watering hole and were watching two rhinos drinking water for a bit of time before we spotted two elephants approaching from the distance. We were curious about what was about to happen but we never expected them to get into a fight.’

‘We were amazed that we could see something like the elephant become aggressive towards the rhinos. We were also worried for the baby rhino, especially after the elephant pushed the rhino mom over her own baby!

‘We felt a bit more at ease once the rhinos started running away with seemingly no injury. Who knew that an elephant carries such power?

‘As Indian Americans, we were used to Indian elephants which are not as big as African elephants. We think of rhinos as huge animals, but the elephant literally pushed the rhino around like it was nothing!’

‘After the rhinos managed to escape some serious injury, the elephant started facing us and moving in our direction. I don’t know whether it would have attacked us, but we put some more distance between the safari vehicle and the aggressive elephant before we could find out.

‘We spoke to our guide and he said that in the 10 years he had been working as a guide, he has never seen anything like this. We witnessed a lot of great sightings on our trip to the Park, but nothing could match this experience.’