Wild boar injures three in eight-hour rampage in Japan's Sasebo city

A wild boar went on an eight-hour rampage as it spread havoc in a peaceful residential area and left at least three people injured in Sasebo, a city in Japan on Sunday (2 October).

The animal upended a 59-year-old man in a wheelchair, bit an 89-year-old woman on her left thumb and smashed into a motorbike and a car before it was stopped by a local man, police said told AFP. The woman and the man in a wheelchair both suffered broken fingers.

A local man stopped the animal measuring 1.2metres with a golf club before police shot it dead.

"I hit it hard" with an iron club, said the local man. "I came out to help when I saw the animal biting her on her arm," he told public broadcaster NHK.

According to an AFP report, wild boars have increasingly been sighted in Japan's mountainous countryside cities. Observers have said that the over-development of the mountains has deprived them of their habitat.

Earlier on 15 May, Britain's ambassador to Austria was injured while trying to escape from a "massive" wild boar while taking a country walk near Vienna.

Leigh Turner, who was previously posted in Turkey and Ukraine, revealed the encounter in a blog post.