Escaped tiger mauls man to death

A tiger that broke loose after severe flooding at the Tbilisi Zoo mauled a man to death before being shot by police.

The interior ministry in Georgia said the tiger was hiding at an abandoned factory that had been turned into a construction market when he attacked the man. The victim later died of his wounds at a hospital.

“We entered the depot and, suddenly, a white tiger rushed out of an adjacent room and attacked one of the workers, jumping at his throat and mauling him,” colleague Alexander Shavbulashvili said.

“We broke the window of another room to flee, and the sound of breaking glass must have scared it and it ran away.”

Police commandos rushed to the site and killed the tiger. “It was a white tiger,” Vakhtang Gomelauri, the interior minister, said.

“We wanted to sedate it, but it was very aggressive and we had to liquidate it.”

An earlier ministry claim that the tiger also wounded another man proved wrong.

The government criticised zoo officials for failing to provide reliable information.

On Tuesday, the zoo said all eight lions, seven tigers, and at least two of the zoo’s three jaguars were killed in the flooding in Tbilisi.

The flooding, triggered by torrential rains over the weekend, killed at least 19 people, destroyed houses, and tore up roads. Six people remain missing.

The zoo said one of its 17 penguins was found alive in the Kura River near the border with Azerbaijan, 40km east of the capital.

Zoo officials say less than half of its 600 inhabitants have survived the flooding.