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A40 between Duisburg and Mülheim
:
Truck fire causes long traffic jams
;)
The tanker was completely burned, numerous rescuers were on duty.
Photo: dpa / Roland Weihrauch
Duisburg / Mülheim A tanker truck caught fire on Thursday afternoon on the A40 between Duisburg and Mülheim. Two people were seriously injured and are being treated at the hospital.
A tanker truck with 35,000 liters of fuel burned under a railway bridge on the A40 between Duisburg and Mülheim on Thursday. The fire could only be extinguished after more than an hour. The flames were sometimes 15 to 20 meters high, a fire department spokesman said. It was not initially clear how big the damage was to the bridge near the road surface.
The truck is believed to have caught fire after a car accident. The drivers of the two vehicles could have been saved, the spokesman continued. They were taken to the hospital seriously injured. But there was no danger of death. The car involved in the accident did not burn, but it was very dirty with soot. The railway bridge was badly damaged by the fire. The fire departments of Mülheim, Duisburg and Oberhausen participated in the operation.
According to a railway spokeswoman, rail traffic was initially unaffected by the fire. Currently, the road section is not used for several days due to construction work.
Initially, it was not clear how long the motorway will be closed in both directions between the Kaiserberg motorway junction and the Mülheim-Dümpten junction. A police spokesman assumed late in the afternoon that the recovery of the truck that had crashed in both lanes would take several hours. “The asphalt is probably badly damaged too,” he said.
As soon as the vehicle is recovered, the state highway construction company wants to examine the site. “We have put an asphalt manufacturing company on hold,” said a spokeswoman for Straßen.NRW. It could possibly be used on Friday night. However, the stability of the bridge has not yet been evaluated. A structural engineer will tackle this on Friday. Therefore, drivers needed a lot of patience on Thursday: the accident caused major traffic obstructions throughout the western Ruhr area.
On many of the surrounding highways there were traffic jams for miles with corresponding wait times. The A 3, A 42 and A 59 were also affected. Even on many city center roads in Duisburg, Mülheim and Oberhausen, nothing happened for many hours.
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