Georgia Floods Kill 12; Animals Still Loose As Night Falls

Twelve people were killed Sunday when severe flooding slammed Tbilisi, capital city of the European country of Georgia. Floodwaters ravaged the city zoo, triggering a citywide, big-game hunt for escaped lions, tigers, a hippopotamus and other dangerous animals.

Police hunted for the animals, warning residents to stay inside. As night fell, some of the creatures were still loose in the city of 1.1 million, deepening fear.

Resident Khariton Gabashvili told the Associated Press, “The daytime wasn’t bad, but tonight, everyone has to be very careful because all the beasts haven’t been captured. They haven’t been fed, and in their hungry state, they might attack people.

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Heavy rain turned a normally pleasant city stream into a fierce torrent that destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes in the former Soviet republic. Officials said 12 people were known to have died and about two dozen others were missing.

"Slow-moving low pressure aloft centered over northern Turkey pumped at least double the average atmospheric moisture for mid-June into Georgia this weekend," said weather.com meteorologist Jon Erdman. "This set the stage for slow-moving areas of heavy rain in the nation's capital."

There were no immediate reports that any of the dead were killed by the animals, which ran off after the floodwaters destroyed their enclosures. Among the beasts that escaped were bears, wolves and monkeys.

A hippopotamus - an extremely aggressive animal with the ability to run faster than humans in short bursts - was spotted lumbering through a flooded square not far from the zoo and was shot with a tranquilizer dart. Other animals were hunted down and killed.

The carcasses of at least a lion, a boar and a tiger were seen, and zoo authorities said six wolves were also dead.

Authorities said the animals may have fled to just about any corner of Tbilisi, including the forests on the steep hills in the city's heart.

Zoo spokeswoman Mzia Sharashidze said a count of the escaped animals was not immediately possible because so many of the zoo's enclosures were under water. But she said five lions were unaccounted for and many monkeys had escaped.

Three zoo workers were found dead on its grounds, including a woman who less than a month ago lost an arm in a tiger attack. Her husband was also reported dead.

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The floodwaters gouged huge chunks out of roads and swamped numerous homes. Helicopters circled the city, and volunteers and rescue workers labored to help residents despite the danger from the escaped animals.

"On this small street there are five dead, three houses completely washed out and everyone is affected," said Lamara Zumburidze, a resident of the hardest-hit section of the city. "I don't know where to sit, where to lie, what to do."

Some officials accused authorities of using unnecessary force against the wild beasts.

Zoo director Zurab Gurielidze said one of the park's most beloved attractions, a young white lion named Shumba, had been found shot in the head.

"Our Shumba is no more," he lamented, according to the news agency Interfax. "It's simply possible that someone exceeded his authority."

The head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as telling a Sunday Mass that Georgia's former Communist rulers bear responsibility for the disaster.

"When Communists came to us in this country, they ordered that all crosses and bells of the churches be melted down and the money used to build the zoo," he said. "The sin will not go without punishment. I am very sorry that Georgians fell so that a zoo was built at the expense of destroyed churches."