By Thomas Burrows for MailOnline. Otar Tsukhishvili pictured , 43, was mauled to death by a Bengal tiger following the flash floods in Georgia. This is the first picture of the victim who was mauled to death by a runaway white tiger as he went to work after flash floods in Georgia allowed zoo animals to escape in apocalyptic scenes.
Otar Tsukhishvili, 43, was attacked after entering a flooded warehouse near Heroes' Square in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. The rare animal is thought to have been one of two white Bengal tigers, Cameron and Maximus, that were leading attractions in the zoo's collection. The Bengal tiger was among scores of beasts including bears, wolves, lions and a hippo that ran amok through Tbilisi in extraordinary scenes after torrential downpours allowed them to escape their enclosures on Sunday.
.2000.jpg "Teen girls Otar")
Police at the scene, alerted by earlier reports of an animal on the loose, cornered the white tiger and gunned it down on Wednesday. The white tiger was so filthy from the flood water it was initially thought to be a lion. Alexander Shavbulashvili, a colleague of Mr Tsukhishvili, said: 'We entered the depot and, suddenly, a white tiger rushed out of an adjacent room and attacked him, jumping at his throat.
Another victim, who survived, was bitten on his arm as terrified residents fled from the warehouse in panic. Mr Tsukhishvili was taken to hospital with a severed carotid artery, but doctors could not save him. The white tiger is carried away on a stretcher after the attack on Wednesday. Avtandil Imedadze, the hospital director at the Republican Hospital in Tbilisi, said he was hospitalised with a cardiac arrest and severed neck artery.
Mr Tsukhishvili, who was married with a family, was from the village of Tsereteli, in the Marneuli region of Georgia - about 30 miles from Tbilisi.
