UnNews:Traffic accident strands thousands on the M1

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London Town, England, Today -- An overturned lorry has wreaked total havoc on the M1 motorway. In the oncoming of the evening rush-hour, a tanker lorry filled with Ribena was rolled over in an accident on the M1, blocking all lanes. In the accident, some of the cargo was spilled from the tanker, thus creating great difficulty in salvage activities. Officers currently at the scene expect it will take at least until 6 am tomorrow for traffic flow to resume normal conditions.

A reconstruction of the accident

While local authorities were quick to respond with emergency services, they found there was not much they could do. Due to the hazardous nature of the spilled cargo, all lanes in both directions had to be closed down immediately, awaiting the arrival of the Special Response Unit who were summoned as soon as the gravity of the situation became clear. Once arrived, the SRU recommended that the remaining Ribena cargo should first be transferred to another tanker before undertaking further salvage operations.

It took two hours to get an empty tanker lorry to the place of the accident, and another three hours to transfer the cargo from the wrecked lorry and clean up the roadway of spillage. Meanwhile, thousands of motorists were stranded in their vehicles.

Ribena Corp, in a gesture of trying to retain goodwill and sympathy from the general public, distributed free samples of their produce amongst the stranded and the rescue workers. This however turned out to be not so fortunate a strategy. As the traffic jam continued, more and more motorists who did in fact ingest Ribena's free sample, experienced a rather urgent call from Mother Nature. While some of the more selfish young men simply disappeared into the country side to "do their thing", the more responsible part of the stranded motorists felt that they should not add to an environmental disaster already in progress. One participant described the sensation like this: "I can feel me dentures starting to float!" At about 10 pm, PortaCabins were flown in by helicopter from Heathrow Airport, much to the relief of all affected.

As to the cause of the accident, a preliminary examination of the overturned lorry revealed that possibly the ventilation system has malfunctioned, thus allowing toxic fumes to enter the drivers cabin from the cargo hold, most likely causing the driver to become unconscious, thereby losing control of the vehicle.