Chocolate oozes onto German city street

It’s that time of year when we all indulge in a bit more chocolate than usual, but one town in western Germany found itself in a sticky situation on Monday night when a ton of the popular confectionery spilled on to the street, coating it in chocolate.

The German newspaper Soester Anzeiger reported on Tuesday that a “small technical defect” involving a storage tank caused the chocolate spillage from the DreiMeister chocolate factory in Westönnen, Werl.

After hitting the frosty pavement, the liquid milk chocolate swiftly hardened. The fire brigade was called around 8pm and the street was closed off as the chocolate flowed out of the factory.

It took about 25 firefighters equipped with hot water, shovels and torches to remove the confectionery mess by loosening the hardened coating and removing the remaining chunks from cracks and holes in the street.

DreiMeister company boss Markus Luckey told the Anzeiger that the factory would be back to work on Wednesday, just in time for Christmas. Luckey said that a failure at the chocolate manufacturer so close to Christmas, their peak production period, would have been catastrophic.

“Despite this heartbreaking incident, it is unlikely that a chocolate-free Christmas is imminent in Werl,” the fire department also said, according to Reuters.