For many people, the prospect of coming across a river of chocolate might seem the stuff dreams are made of.
Rescuers in Arizona, however, faced a bittersweet situation on Monday, when approximately 40,000 pounds of liquid chocolate spilled onto the road after a truck rolled over.
The incident happened just before 9 a.m. local time on the westbound lanes of Interstate 40 just east of Flagstaff, Arizona, some 145 miles north of Phoenix.
The tanker was the only vehicle involved in the accident, which resulted in 3,500 gallons of liquid chocolate ending up on the asphalt.
“There is a river of chocolate blocking/flowing in the westbound lanes of I-40 at milepost 211, east of Flagstaff,” the Arizona Department of Public Safety tweeted.
“This will be a sweet clean-up!”
All westbound lanes on Interstate 40 remained closed until 1 p.m. local time and the Department added it was closed to ascertain the cause of the incident.
“A latch that connects the main truck with the trailer detached, causing the tanker to roll over,” Bart Graves, Arizona DPS media relations specialist, was quoted by CNN.
“The tanker was heavily damaged in the rear so we had [to] pump out the liquid into the median so the tanker could be lifted onto a tow truck.”
According to ABC News, the truck was on its way from Ontario, Canada to Henderson, Nevada when the accident happened.
The clean-up operation was complicated by the fact the chocolate was kept in the tanker at a temperature of 120 degrees. Clean-up crews had to empty the tanker first, in order to lift it and tow it away, and authorities confirmed the driver was not cited for the incident as the liquid was biodegradable.
Last month, a truck in Germany spilled around a ton of liquid chocolate on the road, because of a defect in its storage tank.
The Associated Press reported a truck belonging to the DreiMeister chocolate factory in Westoennen, spilled its sweet content in the town of Werl, around 22 miles east of Dortmund in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia region.
The Berliner Zeitung newspaper said firefighters and emergency services were called out to clean up the road and it took them over two hours to ensure it was fit for purpose again.
“Despite this heartbreaking incident, it is unlikely that a chocolate-free Christmas is imminent in Werl,” a spokesperson for the local fire station said in a statement.
