Bhubaneswar: A Royal Bengal tiger named Suraj escaped from fences inside the tiger safari of Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar Thursday morning.
Hundreds of visitors started running here and there in panic after news about the mishap spread across the zoo.
According to a zoo official, the tiger broke through fences inside the safari when it was being fed by a staff. The incident triggered panic among visitors. Nandankanan authorities immediately raised an alarm when the big cat could not be traced inside the safari.
Swinging into action, the authorities evacuated all visitors from the premises and closed all gates.
A frantic search was carried out for nearly an hour. However, some staff of the zoo, at last, spotted Suraj roaming inside the safari.
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“Now, everything has returned to normal and visitors have been allowed inside the zoo again,” Nandankanan’s deputy director Sanjeet Kumar said.
Notably, Nandankanan Zoological Park is a 437-hectare (1,080-acre) zoo and botanical garden in Odisha. Established in 1960, it was opened to public in 1979 and became the first zoo in India to join World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) in 2009.
PNN