MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russian hunters are pursuing a bear that killed a woman in the center of a far eastern town before escaping into the forest, news agencies reported.
Professional hunters and security officials launched the bear hunt in Palana, a town of about 4,000 people at the northern end of Kamchatka peninsula, Interfax news agency said on August 4, citing local sources.
A male Kamchatka brown bear can weigh 700 kilograms and have a body length of three meters.
A handful of bear attacks are reported in the remote region every year, and three people have died in the past 12 months, RIA reported.
But town center attacks are rare. Palana is the capital of the Koryak administrative region, which was an autonomous region prior to being merged into Kamchatka in 2007.