ARUSHA, Tanzania, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- A group of 20 hippos on Thursday night caused a commotion after storming into a village near Tanzania's northern town of Babati, located 166 km from the tourist city of Arusha.
Manyara Regional Police Commander Deusdedit Nsimeki on Saturday confirmed the incident, saying no casualties reported in the area, located very close to Lake Babati, one of the country's fresh- water lakes.
Eyewitnesses said that a group of hippos stormed into Nangara Ziwani village in search for pastures as the third-largest mammals do eat during nights.
"I was asleep when I heard noises from the neighboring houses, and people were asking for help," said Ombeni Monjoli, one of Nangara Ziwani villagers.
He said that a number of villagers managed to chase the hippos into the lake, though one of the hippos was discovered inside the abandoned pit latrine.
"But, villagers managed retrieve the sunken hippo from the latrine and released it to go into the lake," he said.
Elisante Kianda, an environmental officer in the district said the hippos caused a lot of commotion in the area as some people run away from their homes as hippos are not social wild animals.
He said hippos happened to be one of the large water mammals that usually leave Lake Babati at night, venturing into nearby farms to feed on grass and sometimes maize.
"The pit into which the hippo fell used to be a latrine but somehow the owner decided to abandon it and got overgrown with grass such that the animal, known for its poor eyesight, failed to detect it at night and went straight in," he said.
Kianda said during the night many of the hippos can be spotted moving between the lakes, located over 100 km apart.
He attributed climate change and human induced activities along the lake shores as the main cause for hippos to go into people's homes as their pastures have been destroyed.
It is estimated that the number of the ferocious and pig-shaped "water horses" in the area has dropped to 150 from more than 400 in recent years.
Hippos are the third-largest living land mammal, after elephants and rhinos.
