A truck full of liquid chocolate overturned on a motorway in Poland, spilling 12 tonnes of the sweet stuff all over the road.
Traffic was blocked in both directions of the A2 motorway between the towns of Wrzesnia and Slupca in Western Poland, according to the Associated Press. The road also connects the major cities of Poznan and Warsaw. No one was gravely injured as a result of the accident, but the driver of the lorry was taken to hospital with a broken arm.
It is not clear as yet what caused the tanker truck to overturn and fall on to its side, across the median or where it was ultimately headed. By the time clean up crews had arrived the liquid had begun to solidify, making the scene difficult to clean up, local police said.
Bogdan Kowalski of Slupca’s fire brigade told AP that “the cooling chocolate is worse than snow”. He also noted that in the initial moments after the accident there were some who drove their vehicles through the sticky liquid, spreading it for several kilometers along the highway.
Marlena Kukawka, a media officer for the police in the small town of Slupca, told the New York Times it would take “hours” to clean the mess and fire brigades were using streams of hot water to re-melt the chocolate in order to wash it away.
As the Washington Post reported about the local news station TVN24: "one of its reporters at the scene was walking along the edge of the shoulder to avoid the chocolate only to slip and fall into a ditch, where there was, indeed, more chocolate".
On a positive note, Ms Kukawka said “it’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many smiles on the faces of emergency rescue folks and police officers at the scene of an accident”.
