All lions, tigers accounted for in Tbilisi zoo flooding

Since the floods, the public has criticized police and Special Forces for unnecessarily shooting the escaped animals.

The floods has killed at least 17 people and ravaged Tbilisi’s central districts including the zoo, from which hundreds of animals escaped.

There were no reports that any of the dead were killed by zoo animals.

A tiger that escaped from a zoo in the Georgian capital Tbilisi during the weekend’s freak floods killed a man in the city center. An estimated 19 people, including three zoo employees, have died since the flooding on June 14.

Patrol police, zoo workers and rescue teams were said to have seen the tiger slumped motionless in the warehouse three times before it struck - but had left it there thinking it was dead.

While demonstrators were still outside the government building, PM Irakli Garibashvili held a televised meeting of an emergency response headquarters, set up following the Tbilisi flooding.

The Georgian government had initially warned residents to stay indoors after the disaster, which flooded the zoo after the Vere River burst its banks after heavy rain.

However, the press office of the zoo announced on Tuesday that a tiger, a hyena and a bear were not accounted for.

The man’s death came less than a day after officials said most of the animals believed roaming the city after the floods had been captured. “Possibly we could not have avoided it. Eight workers went inside to tidy up the place and it attacked one of them”.

Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri said that even though they had received a report that no more animals were on the loose, the MIA was still conducting a search, but with reduced resources. Nino Giorgobani, ministry spokesman, later corrected the announcement saying that it was indeed a tiger that attacked the man, The New York Times noted. Six people remain missing.

The African penguin was spotted at the Red Bridge, the crossing point between Georgia and Azerbaijan on the Tbilisi to Ganja road according to the zoo administration. Many other animals, including bears, wolves and lions were killed later, with many shot by police whilst on the loose in the city.

Debris is cleared from a flood damaged area of the zoo in Tbilisi,