At least twelve people have died and a number more are missing after heavy rainfall and floods overnight in Georgia.
Heavy rainfall turned the Vere river, which flows through the capital Tbilisi, into a torrent that swept away dozens of buildings and cars.
Animals from the city's zoo, including tigers, lions, bears and wolves, escaped from cages damaged by the rainfall.
Three zoo workers are among the dead, and 10 more people are missing.
An escaped hippopotamus was cornered in one of the city's main squares and subdued with a tranquiliser gun.
Some other animals have been located, but it remains unclear how many are on the loose.
Zoo spokeswoman Mzia Sharashidze told the InterPressNews agency the facility has been turned into a "hellish whirlpool".
She said: "Some 20 wolves, eight lions, white tigers, tigers, jackals, jaguars have either been shot dead by special forces or are missing.
"Only three out of our 17 penguins were saved."
Residents are being told to stay inside as zoo workers try to locate them, with helicopters circling the city of around 1.1 million people.
There are no reports that any of the fatalities were due to animal attacks.
The zoo said one of those who died was Guliko Chitadze, a zookeeper who lost an arm in an attack by a tiger last month.
The Interfax news agency reported that her husband also died in the flooding.
A preliminary estimate has put the damages at $10m (around €8.8m), according to Irakly Lekvinadze, vice mayor of Tbilisi.
He said: "Dozens of families remain homeless as their houses were destroyed or damaged in the capital."
Shakh Aivazov / AP/Press Association Images
The head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, was quoted by Interfax as telling a mass that Georgia's former Communist rulers could be seen as being involved in the disaster.
He said: "When Communists came to us in this country, they ordered that all crosses and bells of the churches be melted down and the money used to build the zoo," he said.
"The sin will not go without punishment. I am very sorry that Georgians fell so that a zoo was built at the expense of destroyed churches."
