Two endangered tigers mauled their zookeeper to death after escaping from their enclosure.
Heavy rain caused a landslide at the zoo in Borneo, south east Asia, allowing the young female Bengal tigers to break free through a hole.
A 47-year-old member of staff was found dead by their enclosure, with bite wounds and scratches, the AFP News Agency reports.
In a desperate effort to capture the big cats – both aged around 18 months – one was successfully tranquillised with a dart but the other was shot dead.
Before being caught, the fearsome predators appear to have killed several other animals at the zoo, as the corpses of an ostrich and a monkey were found by their enclosure.
Authorities in Borneo issued an emergency order to shut down all tourist destinations and attractions in the area to prevent more people being slaughtered as the tigers ran free.
Members of the public were also told to stay at home for their own safety.
Some residents of Singkawang in West Kalimantan however, volunteered their time to join a massive search party launched to track down the big cats.
Sadtata Noor Adirahmanta, the leader of a local conservation agency, told AFP: "We tried with a tranquilliser gun first but it didn't work, so we were forced to shoot the tiger because it was already behaving very aggressively.
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"We were afraid it would escape to the nearest neighbourhood,
"Although we tried our best to catch it alive, our priority is humans' safety."
In an attempt to lure the big cats back to the zoo, staff collected animal prey which they left inside their enclosure at around feeding time.
Drones were also deployed in the dense forest around the zoo to hunt down the tigers' location.
A local police chief has been quoted as having said: "We had a hard time finding them".
The surviving tranquillised tiger is now undergoing monitoring at the zoo by veterinary experts.
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