Five chimpanzees broke out from their enclosure at a German animal park today, injuring a five-year-old girl and sparking a temporary evacuation, a zoo spokeswoman has said.


According to AFP, the five primates are thought to have used wood that had fallen into their pen from recent gardening work to climb out and run for freedom.


The five-year-old girl sustained light head wounds after she was apparently knocked down by one of the marauding chimps. She was taken to hospital as a precautionary measure.


Four of the five escapees “had a quick look around and then jumped pretty quickly back into their compound,” spokeswoman Simone Hagenmeyer has told AFP.


“The fifth and oldest chimp went off to visit the head gorilla,” she said, adding he was a bit harder to cajole back to captivity.


“He’s getting on a bit, so we offered him a ladder to get back into the enclosure,” she said.


Some 2,500 people were evacuated from the zoo in the northern city of Hanover while the escape bid was quashed, the spokeswoman said.