LIONS roamed the streets, a hippopotamus grazed on a tree in a central square and a bear was left crouching on a firstfloor window sill.

These were the extraordinary scenes on Sunday after a flash flood tore through the centre of Tbilisi in Georgia, killing at least a dozen people and devastating the city zoo.

Dangerous beasts fled from their ruined pens and cages as millions of tons of water, mud and debris sluiced through the streets.

At least 20 wolves, eight lions, six tigers and several jaguars and bears were killed by the flood or escaped into the chaos, after the Vere River overflowed following heavy rain and high winds. City authorities said they were looking for 32 predators. Residents were warned to stay home as police with rifles and helicopters tracked down the wayward animals.

“Our favourite lion, Shumba, was just killed by the emergency forces,” said Mzia Sharashidze, a spokesman for the city zoo. “We don’t know how many animals are missing.”

Six wolves were reportedly shot dead in a yard at an infectious diseases hospital, while a hyena was shot after it chased a university guard.

The errant hippopotamus was subdued with a tranquilliser dart as it chewed on a tree near Heroes’ Square. Television pictures showed the mud-slicked beast ambling down a street with leaves poking from its mouth as locals guided it back to an enclosure by leaning on its rump.

Three out of 17 penguins from the zoo were also rescued and two bear cubs were discovered in a garden. Another bear was pictured dead among debris in photographs from the city.

There were no reports of animal attacks but the death toll was expected to rise, with at least 24 people missing.

Giorgi Margvelashvili, Georgia’s president, expressed his sympathies to the victims as he visited the affected area to observe the clean-up operation.

“The human losses that we have suf- fered are very hard to tolerate,” he told local television. “I express my condolences to all the people who lost their relatives.”

Twenty-two thousand people were left without electricity and power workers were repairing the disrupted gas network.

“We are in shock,” said Lika Peradze, a parliament official, who lives in Vake district where the damage was worst.

“The river burst its banks,” she told The Daily Telegraph by telephone.

“My brother spoke to someone who saw people waving lights on the third floor of a building down in the lower district. Then a second wave came and they disappeared under the water.

“The debris is four metres deep in the cemetery, people can’t find their family graves. Many homes are destroyed and nobody knows how many more dead they might find.

“We’re being told on television not to go out because of the dangerous ruins and the wild animals walking about. A lion was captured in the yard of a maternity unit in the centre.”

Irakly Lekvinadze, the vice mayor of Tbilisi, told reporters that dozens of families were homeless as their houses had been destroyed or damaged. He estimated the damage at no less than £6million.

Among those killed were two keepers at the zoo, where low-lying pens were swamped. One of them was Guliko Chitadze, who lost an arm in an attack by a tiger last month; her husband also reportedly died in the flooding.

Zurab Gurielidze, the director of the zoo, suggested to reporters that some animals had been killed unnecessarily. “If a predator attacked a person then it’s understandable but there are cases that will need to be investigated,” he said.

Ms Peradze said she and her mother were gathering spare clothes to take to a collection point in Vake for those left homeless by the disaster. Asked if she was afraid to venture out, she replied: “No, I used to live in Africa so I like all these lions and other animals.”

Patriarch Ilia II, head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, said in his Sunday morning sermon that the flood was the result of the sins of communists who had built the city zoo on funds raised from melting down bells from churches and monasteries.