Terror London at Zoo as 29-stone gorilla escapes
Running wild: Kumbuka broke free from his pen for 90 minutes
A GORILLA was hunted by armed keepers and police last night after he escaped from his enclosure at London Zoo.
For 90 terrifying minutes, staff frantically searched for the 29-stone silverback while sirens blared through the park.
Visitors told how they hid in cafes, aquariums and the butterfly enclosure as it was feared the gorilla, called Kumbuka, was rampaging around the zoo.
Up to 20 keepers and officers carrying guns were seen at the park and a police helicopter was said to have arrived within minutes of the alarm being raised.
Although visitors said the 18-yearold western lowland gorilla was agitated before the escape, and had charged the glass surrounding his enclosure, last night it was still unclear how he broke free.
Oliver Barker, 24, who was at the zoo for a marketing conference, told Mail Online: ‘He looked like he was in a sort of trance, he definitely wasn’t relaxed at all.
‘He looked very intimidating. The zookeeper came over and said, “don’t aggravate him by staring at him”.
‘[A colleague] said he charged at the glass but the glass didn’t even wobble. Five minutes after that we were told to get into the nearest safe room.’
Jonny Briers, 22, said: ‘The gorilla charged at the glass. And then we started to leave and we heard the siren go off.
‘Then we saw zookeepers running and they told us to go inside. We went into the aquarium and they locked the doors.’
Neuropsychologist Dr Jonathan Mall was at a conference at the zoo when a siren went off and an urgent call was made over the speakers asking for staff to help.
The 33-year-old, from Hamburg in Germany, said he saw two members of staff ‘frantically running around’ in the enclosure, and when he jokingly asked one if a gorilla was loose he was told: ‘I don’t know, please go outside the area.’ He added: ‘Another distressed staff member said, “please move quickly and go inside a building”, and she told us to leave, I saw other people running for buildings.’
Dr Mall and other visitors were forced to hide inside a bird attraction, stranded for around half an hour while staff tried to bring the loose gorilla under control.
He said: ‘I was kind of scared to be honest... there could be a gorilla hiding behind every bush. Any sound I heard scared me.’
After a tense search, Kumbuka was found in the secure keeper’s enclosure, and was recaptured after staff shot him with a tranquilliser dart.
Met Police officers arrived at the zoo at 5.20pm and said the drama was over shortly before 7pm.
The escape came just months after a gorilla called Harambe was killed by staff at Cincinnati Zoo, to international outcry, after it grabbed a child who had fallen into the enclosure.
As an investigation of the London drama began last night, one visitor criticised the zoo’s handling of the lockdown.
The woman, from Fulham, said: ‘We didn’t quite know what was going on. Everyone was confused and slightly shaken as all we heard were sirens going off.
‘The only way we heard about what was happening was through whispers. We weren’t told anything by the staff.’
The £5.3million Gorilla Kingdom enclosure was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 2007 and was the largest investment at the zoo for 40 years. That same year there were warnings that animals could escape unless security was improved.
A report said that although it had no concerns about animal enclosures, in the circumstances of dangerous animals escaping it was ‘unlikely’ the existing perimeter fence would be able to contain them.
And in 2009 a red panda – a species notorious for escaping – was found in a tree outside the zoo.
Last night Malcolm Fitzpatrick, curator of mammals at the zoo, said Kumbuka was now ‘up and grumbling and interacting with the rest of his gorilla family’.
He added: ‘It was a safe, secure keeper area, so at no time did he actually get out into the zoo.’
Another spokesman confirmed that the zoo would be open today as normal.
‘Any sound scared me’