Terror as bear rampages through Russian shopping mall [Video]

A bear rampaged through a Russian shopping mall before escaping and being shot dead by police. The animal was killed in the playground of a local kindergarten.

The bear was spotted in a car park in the city of Khabarovsk near the Chinese border. By the time police had arrived on the scene, it had entered a local shopping mall.

"I was sitting at my cashier desk, my working place, and then I heard the doors breaking," an unnamed mall worker told local media. "I looked and thought there was maybe a scuffle or something. Then I saw the bear galloping past me. I was scared. I flattened myself against the chair. He ran away and we escaped to the back office," she said.

Footage shows the bear running through the shopping mall before pushing a door open with its forelegs and galloping down a street. Police said the animal was angry and disorientated because of wounds it sustained from broken glass in the mall and they shot it in the play area of a kindergarten.

Animal activist Natalya Kovalenko told local media that the police did what they had to do: "The choice here was obvious; they had to act fast to avoid human casualties."