Victim of clown attack fled to nearby house

Police are still hunting for the woman's attackers. Photo / File

The 22-year-old Hamilton woman who was attacked by two clowns in the early hours of Saturday morning fled to a neighbouring house to raise the alarm.

The woman suffered moderate injuries during the terrifying incident and police are still hunting for her clown attackers.

The assault comes amid a social media frenzy with people posting sightings and videos of scary clowns online across the country.

The sightings have been called the "scary clown epidemic" and originated in the US, where ghoulish clowns have tried luring children into forests.

A report of a clown scaring children at a Porirua school emerged earlier this week.

Police today released further details to the Herald about the Hamilton attack and said the woman ran to a friend's house who lived nearby to raise the alarm and get help.

The woman was walking along Memorial Drive about 3.15am on Saturday when two men dressed as clowns allegedly assaulted her.

She suffered moderate injuries but is not understood to have been hospitalised.

Hamilton Police are still investigating and planned to speak with the victim again to get further details about the incident, a police media spokesperson said.

Police would like to speak to the occupants of a white van which was seen in the area at the time of the assault, which they say was isolated.

No CCTV footage was available.

A day before the attack, Waikato District Police posted on its Facebook page that people were "getting freaked out by kids/trolls creating fake Facebook profiles with stupid names and a clown profile picture".

"To date we haven't locked up any murderous clowns purging towns as they have promised."

It instead encouraged people to block and report the profile on Facebook and for people to calm down if they did see a clown in public.

The post also told people to call police if they felt threatened or "maybe ask them to juggle or tie a balloon animal to see if they're legit".