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Elephants on the run trash property

From correspondents in Seoul

April 20, 2005

SIX elephants have escaped from a children's circus, trampled property and trashed a restaurant as panicked residents looked on. One woman needed treatment for a head wound after she was bowled over by an elephant's trunk, witnesses said.

The elephants fled in the middle of a performance when they were marching around the circus ring before hundreds of spectators at Children's Park in north-eastern Seoul, where they performed five times a day.

Resident Lee Hye-Ja, 64, said she was chatting to another woman, Noh In-Soon, 52, in the street. "Suddenly an elephant appeared from nowhere and pushed her with its trunk," Mrs Lee said. "She fell to the ground and I jumped to flee the scene."

The elephant roamed through back alleys then ran amok in the courtyard of a house, destroying a garage door and trampling garden plants. The elephant was lured away by emergency rescuers who soothed her with food. Three other elephants were being herded back into their cages when they turned tail and fled again.

They turned up at a nearby restaurant that serves pork. "I saw these jumbos barge through the door," a witness said. "They started overturning tables and throwing chairs. It was so scary. I hid inside a closet."

Two others lumbered down neighborhood streets, snarling traffic and alarming pedestrians.

"Five elephants have so far been detained but one is still on the run," a police officer said. "The five are now being taken back to their homes by emergency rescuers."

AAP

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=2996330