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[rok_the-boat]

Last Sunday I was on my way to the subway station in my car to pick a friend up. On the way, ahead, I saw a policeman standing in the middle of the road. At the side, was a tanker truck, you know, with petrol/gasoline, that had crashed into the side of the road; it had taken out about four street poles (lights / electricity / telephone - whatever) and was entangled in cables. And so I pull up at the red light, right next to the damned thing. And ... it's smoking!!! Holy shite!

Just then, a fire engine arrived and I had to wait while it did a U-turn in front of me. Then I turned left and disappeared ASAP. The tanker truck was likely full as it was on its way away from the refinery I know to be behind the mountain were I live.

Fifteen minutes later I was coming back the same way - no other way to get home - with my friend aboard. I expected a traffic-jam, but no, the road was clear. And the fire engine had gone. It had sprayed the tanker truck with water, and promptly left. The same policeman was still in the centre of the road. I noticed the truck had crashed right at the front gate of a children's nursery - but empty - it was Sunday. On the side of the tanker truck was evidence of burnt paint - a largish section right above its own diesel tank.

The first thing that amazes me is how the fire engine could leave such a scene of potential disaster so quickly. You would imagine, would you not, that the tanker might just have been damaged in the accident and that the fire brigade should have supervised its removal from the site. The second thing to amaze me was the crowd of on-lookers. Like, do you want to stand next to a smoking petrol tanker? On the opposite side of the street was a petrol station too ...

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Now that I think about it, I remember another accident I saw a couple of years back in Guro-gu. One of those grossly overloaded scrap-metal trucks made a left turn down a narrow side street - only - he turned too sharply and the whole thing toppled over with the most incredible crashing sound and the scrap spilled out everywhere. Luckily, no one was hurt.