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23rd Feb 2012

Easygoing Five: Five unusual road spillages

Have you heard about the truck in Cork that spilled hundreds of gallons of animal fat onto a busy road? No? Well, here it is along with four other unusual road spillages.

Oisin Collins

Have you heard about the truck in Cork that spilled hundreds of gallons of animal fat onto a busy road? No? Well, here it is along with four other unusual road spillages.

Animal Fat – Kinsale, Cork

On Wednesday, February 22, a truck carrying hundreds of gallons of animal fat was on its way from Cork to Limerick. The driver, blissfully unaware of what was going on, continued on the journey like it was any other. The same cannot be said for anyone travelling behind the truck, which was actually leaking liquid fat. The driver drove up the Kinsale road on his way to Limerick but anyone unlucky enough to be caught behind him, was forced to either get off the road or drive in ice-like conditions. A few minor accidents were caused but thankfully no one was injured.

Marmite – South Yorkshire, UK

In late November of last year, a tanker filled with Marmite was making its way up the M1 in South Yorkshire, England. Everything seemed normal when suddenly the tanker overturned and the inevitable happened. A section of the road had to be closed for the majority of the night, because the sticky, gloopy, yeasty and most importantly, manky paste had covered a section of the carriageway. In total, 23.5 tonnes of the yeast extract had to be cleaned up off the road. We’re just glad we didn’t have to lend a hand.

Bull Semen – Nashville, Tennessee

This is probably one of the stranger spillages we’ve ever come across. A Greyhound bus – which is public transport – was carrying extra freight while on a journey through Nashville last August. What the passengers didn’t know was that their luggage wasn’t rolling around with other bags. It was instead sitting next to four large canisters of frozen Bull Semen.

While trying to turn a corner, the compartment door of the bus opened and the canisters fell off and littered the highway. Emergency workers had to clean up the canisters, which were emitting a light vapour and… “a foul smelling odour”. After reading this, we’ll happily clean up Marmite any day of the week.

Mayonnaise – Birr, Co. Offaly

Birr in County Offaly was given a right oul spreading, with mayonnaise that is, back in August of last year. AA Roadwatch initially tweeted about the incident and soon after, every journalist and his dog was in on top of the action. Some of the puns included: “traffic being sandwiched in the vicinity”, “loose chips on the street”, “tasty story spreading like wildfire” and so on. No one was hurt, so everyone had a good day. Except for they guys who had to clean the mess up. For them, it was Hell-man’s…

Dead Fish – Ardglass, Co. Down

If ever there was a farmer who was fed up to the gills with fish, it would be this guy. Gordon Flinn was contacted by police one afternoon and was informed that his field was covered in fish. According to Mr Flinn, he had expected to arrive at his field to find it covered in boxes of fish fingers, but instead he was greeted by a ‘sea of silver fish’. A whopping 20 tonnes of fish to be exact. It took 12 men, a digger and a crane a total of seven hours to clean up the mess.

There you have it – five strange spillages. If you know of any other strange spillages that have happened at home or abroad then let us know what went down, in the comments section below.

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