a truck carrying 150 pigs overturns on the A31, traffic blocked for several hours

a truck carrying 150 pigs overturns on the A31, traffic blocked for several hours
a truck carrying 150 pigs overturns on the A31, traffic blocked for several hours

A truck transporting pigs overturned on its side this Saturday morning on the A31, in the Vosges. The highway had to be closed for several hours before traffic could resume.

Traffic was only able to resume at the end of the afternoon. A heavy goods vehicle carrying 150 pigs overturned on its side this Saturday, December 21 in the morning in the Vosges, leading to the closure of the A31 motorway for several hours, the prefecture announced.

The accident occurred between the Bourbonne-les-Bains exit and that of Montigny-le-Roy, in the Luxembourg- direction, the Vosges prefecture said on social networks.

A diversion put in place

On this day of vacation departures, the highway remained closed for several hours, while emergency services caught up with the animals that had escaped from the truck. According to Bleu Sud Lorraine, several pigs which were transported to the third floor of the truck died after being expelled during the impact.

The prefecture had called on motorists to avoid the area, and a diversion was put in place. “The operations are soon finished, the animals have been evacuated, and the APRR (motorway concessionaire, editor’s note) has started cleaning the lanes so that traffic can resume,” said late in the afternoon to AFP the sub-prefect of Vosges, Thomas Kupisz.

Several users complained about the maintenance of the toll barrier on the only exit lane at Robécourt, which complicated the evacuation of vehicles.

“We were stuck for six hours”

“There were seven kilometers of cars on two lanes of traffic stopped for seven hours, so thousands of vehicles. The diversion was put in place, but the APRR refused to open the toll barrier, it did not “There was only one car passing every 30 seconds”, lamented to AFP Miguel Vandamme, a Belgian motorist traveling on the A31 with his three children, contacted by telephone.

“In terms of safety, it's not acceptable. We were stuck for six hours. That's the drift of private highways, nothing to worry about from users,” he complained.

“It would be the minimum to close access to the highway upstream and not let the cars rush into this nightmare. We have been there for hours, no information, no toilets, the horror,” testified on X another motorist, Gardenia Trezzini.

-

-

PREV what we know about the attack on the Christmas market
NEXT Weather Alert: Heavy snow in the mountains and violent winds linked to the Enol depression