Elephants Stampede in Seoul

Seoul has long had a reputation as one of Asia's wildest concrete jungles, but even residents who thought they had seen everything would have done a double take yesterday when a small herd of elephants stampeded through the city's streets.

The six elephants, which had escaped from an amusement park, trumpeted through crowded roads, blundered their way into a restaurant and wandered through a garden.

A woman, Roh In-sun, was injured by the trunk of one of the beasts as it charged through a narrow alley, sending pedestrians flying.

"She fell, and I ran away because I was scared," said Ms Roh's landlord, Lee Hye-ja, who had been standing next to her.

The rampage began when one of the elephants bolted as it was being led on a daily parade outside their enclosure in Seoul Children's Grand Park.

The five others followed "because they have the tendency to do that," a zoo official told Reuters.

Police and firefighters rounded up five of the elephants, but they had to cordon off streets before they could catch the sixth.