Javascript Drag and Drop: removing dragged element following successful drop

Also take a look at this example: http://html5demos.com/drag

var el = document.getElementById(e.dataTransfer.getData('Text'));

el.parentNode.removeChild(el);

Listen for the dragend event and check the dropEffect variable of the dataTransfer object before doing anything with the dragged element:

htmlElement.addEventListener('dragend', function(event){
    if(event.dataTransfer.dropEffect !== 'none'){
        $(this).remove();
    }
});