Five chimpanzees broke out from their enclosure at a German animal park
today, injuring a five-year-old girl and sparking a temporary
evacuation, a zoo spokeswoman has said.
According to AFP, the five
primates are thought to have used wood that had fallen into their pen
from recent gardening work to climb out and run for freedom.

The
five-year-old girl sustained light head wounds after she was apparently
knocked down by one of the marauding chimps. She was taken to hospital
as a precautionary measure.

Four of the five escapees "had a
quick look around and then jumped pretty quickly back into their
compound," spokeswoman Simone Hagenmeyer has told AFP.


"The
fifth and oldest chimp went off to visit the head gorilla," she said,
adding he was a bit harder to cajole back to captivity.


"He's getting on a bit, so we offered him a ladder to get back into the enclosure," she said.


Some
2,500 people were evacuated from the zoo in the northern city of
Hanover while the escape bid was quashed, the spokeswoman said.