Tbilisi Zoo hippo pic among top Reuters photos of 2015

An iconic photograph showing the aftermath of the June 13 flood in Georgia's capital has been selected by Reuters news agency as one of the most iconic images of 2015.

Photographer Beso Gulashvili's now-iconic image, showing a hippo from Tbilisi Zoo the morning after the disastrous flood, was selected for a Reuters collection of 11 images by the agency's photographers, titled 2015: A picture and its story.

The unranked list was published on Wednesday and included stories on how the images came to be and the events they portrayed.

Also this week the same image was chosen as one of the top 100 photos of the year by New York-based TIME magazine.

While speaking about his photograph that has since circulated in various media all over the world, Gulashvili told the story of how he came to capture the moment in the morning of June 14, reminiscing how close he came to missing the opportunity to take the photograph of Beggy, the escaped hippo.

I was there from 11:30pm. This photo was shot at 6am the next morning; my memory card was almost full so I had only a couple of shots left,” he said.

Gulashvili also spoke about the danger he potentially faced at the scene.

There was only one complicated escape route available to me in case Beggy decided to attack me. There were very few people around, as police had shut down the area.”

 The distance between the hippo and me was about 25 metres. I realised that even for an animal as powerful as this one it was also quite difficult to move forward in such mud.”

The escaped hippo was later tranquilised and returned to a shared elephant enclosure as her former home was destroyed by the natural disaster that allowed many animals - including six tigers, six lions and eight bears - to break free and roam the streets.

The Reuters list of top images of the year also included snaps from conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, the refugee crisis on Europe's shores and the solidarity march in Paris that showed support for local satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in the wake of the terrorist attacks on its offices in January 2015.

The collection of images selected by Reuters can be viewed here.