An 84-year-old man was killed near Paris when an elephant belonging to a local circus escaped from its pen and hit him with its trunk, police said today.
The elephant performed as usual yesterday afternoon in Lizy-sur-Ourcq -- some 50 kilometres from Paris -- and was then taken back to its open-air enclosure.
Witnesses described how the elephant had grabbed a tarpaulin and placed it over the electric fence surrounding its pen, before breaking through barriers and trailers that formed a second enclosure.
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The unidentified man was taken to hospital but died from his injuries overnight yesterday.