Tokyo, Japan (RTV) - At Tokyo's Ueno Zoo on Wednesday, guards rushed to warn visitors to seek shelter after an earthquake allowed a rhinoceros to escape its pen, as keepers and police were scrambled to deal with the threat.
This rhino however, was made of paper mache and the earthquake part of a drill to prepare the zoo for an actual animal emergency.
Over a hundred staff and Japanese police and paramedics participated in the drills as the rhino - animated by two people - slowly plodded through the park.
Keepers were even attacked by the life-sized paper mache rhino, which prompted other staff members to rescue their colleagues while pushing the rhino away with sticks.
Although visitors were rushed away from the rhino's path, many stayed around to watch the event as the fake animal meandered through the park.
"I've come to this park quite a few times, and while this was training, it's the first time I've seen this sort of event and so it was rather interesting," said 36-year-old Hiromi Kubota, who took pictures of the paper mache rhino with her 4-year-old child.
The drills are held annually at various zoos around Tokyo to maintain readiness in the event of a disaster. Simpler costumes are sometimes used, but as Ueno Zoological Gardens director Toshimitsu Doi explained, the paper mache rhino was used this time for its impact.
"As the costume is seen as somewhat cute, it becomes somewhat event-like, and while that's not bad at all, we hoped to have something a bit closer to the real thing with ours," Doi said.
After keepers surrounded the paper mache rhino with a net, it was tranquillized and captured, at which point the two staff inside the rhino were allowed to return to their normal duties.
The Ueno Zoological Garden has only had four instances of animals escaping in the last 50 years.