Watch these chimps use branch fashioned as a ladder to escape Belfast Zoo

Zookeepers say a group of chimpanzees used branches weakened by a storm to make a ladder and escape from their enclosure at the Belfast Zoo.

Video filmed Saturday by visitors to the Northern Ireland zoo showed several primates scaling a wall and perching atop it, with one walking down a path outside the enclosure.

Elaine Monaghanposted videos of the escapeto Twitter, but says it was her daughter and her partner who shot the footage. She wrote that one of the animals came close to her grandchildren, with "Belfast Zoo trying to make out it wasn't a big deal."

Zookeeper Alyn Cairns said trees in the chimps' enclosure had been weakened by recent storms, allowing the animals to break them and fashion a ladder to escape. He told the BBC, "They're intelligent primates and know they're not supposed to be out of their enclosure, so got back in themselves."

Two weeks ago a rare red panda escaped from the same zoo when its electric fences failed. The animal was recaptured in the driveway of a nearby house.