Police in central Thailand said they barricaded themselves into their own station over the weekend, after a menacing mob of 200 escaped monkeys ran riot on the town.

The human inhabitants of Lopburi have long suffered from a growing and aggressive monkey population and authorities have built special enclosures to contain groups of the unruly residents.

But on Saturday around 200 of the primates broke out and rampaged through town, with one posse descending on a local police station.