The 44-year-old female, who was injured in 1999 while working at a logging camp on the Thailand-Myanmar border, had to have her mutilated front left foot amputated and has been forced to hobble along on three legs.

Motala was fitted with her "pre-prosthesis" on August 10 and will wear the 10 kilogram (22 pound) shoe-like device which contains sawdust and cushions for up to six hours a day for the next five to eight months.

"She has not had any reaction to the pre-prosthesis," Soraida Salwala from Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation which cares for Motala, told AFP.

The temporary prosthesis, a green canvas sack much like a punchbag which is kept in place by a sling around the elephant's shoulders, will be replaced with a more durable one next year, she added.

Motala has been recovering at an elephant hospital at Lampang in northwestern Thailand, which is also home to other landmine victims and elephants injured in other industrial accidents including treading on nails.

Motala was working hauling logs inside the Myanmar border when the accident happened in August 1999. She trod on a mine, a legacy of the decades of conflict there, after being released by her Thai owner to forage for food.

Thais, who revere elephants as a national symbol, monitored Motala's progress through regular televised medical reports and donated millions of baht for her recovery despite the kingdom's worst recession on record.

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