A Tauranga couple living in Georgia were shocked to see the devastation caused by a flood which killed at least 12 and destroyed a zoo leaving tigers, lions and a hippopotamus among the animals roaming free in the country's capital.
Former Bay of Plenty Times reporter Genevieve Helliwell, 27, and fiance Richard Saunders, 31, having been living and working in Tbilisi for two years. Miss Helliwell (right) said they were camping at a national park in Borjomi, about two hours west of Tbilisi, for the weekend when she received a message from a friend saying animals had escaped from the zoo.
"I was with a group of about seven people and initially we thought it was a joke then more people started contacting us telling us the news. The zoo and disaster zone are in a very populated area. Several of our friends live very close to the area and it is also a main driving route so we were all quite keen to get home and see the situation for ourselves," she told the Bay of Plenty Times from Tbilisi.
"We arrived back about 5pm and the traffic was chaos as police had closed the roads. The detour went straight past where the bank collapsed and the flood originated and as we drove past we saw dozens of people standing on the sidewalk holding plastic bags of their only belongings, and they're all covered in mud. Many are now homeless."