A distraught circus elephant looking for a mate nearly crushed his Thai trainer to death and caused a massive uproar in suburban Quezon City yesterday.

The elephant slipped out of his pen and took rescuers on a three-kilometre chase across a busy residential and commercial district before being sedated and taken back.

Dumbo, one of 10 pachyderms brought from Thailand for a year-long elephant show in Manila, escaped from his pen in the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City's Cubao district around noon yesterday. The sight of the massive six-ton male elephant running down the side streets of the suburb caught Metro Manilans by surprise, causing a massive traffic jam that lasted for at least five hours.

Residents and veterinarians were able to temporarily prevent the animal from continuing its journey by occasionally feeding it with bananas and hosing it down with water to cool it off.

"He is apparently looking for a mate as it is mating season for elephants around this time in Thailand," one of the Thai mahouts told reporters.

A local veterinarian, Dr Ed Guzman, who is looking after the pachyderms during their stay in the Philippines, was able to bring Dumbo under control by injecting at least three vials of tranquiliser into its left leg as residents tried to distract it by offering it bananas.

By the time it was put under sedation, the elephant had already wandered some three kilometres into Kamuning district.

The chase left radio reporters covering the incident panting as they gave blow-by-blow accounts of the unfolding spectacle.

Meanwhile, the Thai mahout, who was injured by the elephant at the start of its rampage, is presently in serious condition with eight broken ribs.

The elephant had stepped on his chest before kicking him clear out of its way while escaping from its pen. Dumbo is also currently under observation by veterinarians after he fell while being lifted by a crane onto a cargo truck while under sedation.

Bayani Fernando, Metro Manila Development Authority chairman, said his office is looking into the circumstances of the elephant's escape.

"We'll make sure that it will not happen again," he said. Although Dumbo is an Asian elephant, pachyderms are not indigenous to the Philippines where the biggest land animal is the water buffalo, which is no heavier than a tonne.