Gorilla escapes from US zoo, tackles worker

COLUMBIA, South Carolina - A 177-kilogram gorilla grabbed low-hanging bamboo to scale a wall at a zoo in South Carolina, escaping his enclosure and tackling a worker before returning to his pen about five minutes later.

The gorilla at Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens ran into a pizza-stand employee who curled up and played dead, officials said.

Zoo executive director Satch Krantz said the worker heard a strange sound, saw the gorilla outside the enclosure and turned to run.

"Then the gorilla did what gorillas do," he said.

The animal quickly closed the nine-metre gap between them and knocked the worker down. Two minutes later, the gorilla went over another wall and back into his enclosure.

"By then, the gorilla realised he was probably somewhere he shouldn't have been and wanted to go home," Krantz said.

The culprit is believed to be a 16-year-old western lowland gorilla named Mike, though zoo officials said they didn't know for certain.

- AP