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Chock-a-block! A ton of chocolate spills onto road in German city

The Local Germany
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Chock-a-block! A ton of chocolate spills onto road in German city
Firefighters had to remove the chocolate spillage. Photo: DPA/Fire Brigade Werl

It's that time of year when we all indulge in a bit more chocolate than usual. But a city in North Rhine-Westphalia had to deal with a literal overflow of the sweet stuff when a ton of it leaked onto a street.

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A chocolate factory in the Werl district of Westönnen alerted the fire brigade on Monday after a ton of liquid chocolate coated the street outside, reported RP Online.
 
Around 8pm on Monday bosses at the DreiMeister factory alerted emergency services that one ton of their liquid chocolate had flowed out of a delivery tank. 
 
The chocolate mass travelled across the factory yard and onto the street, the fire brigade reported.
 
Photo: DPA
 
The road had to be closed for two hours so that emergency services and a specialist cleaning company could get to work scraping the chocolate off and cleaning the street.
 
According to fire chief Karsten Korte the chocolate mass had "already hardened" in some parts when emergency teams arrived so they had to use a shovel to dig parts of it up. 
 
A ten square metre pool of the sweet treat had reportedly formed into a thick layer. 
 
Local newspaper Soester Anzeiger said Tuesday that a "small technical problem" had led to the incident.
 
However, production was to continue again on Wednesday. 
 
Company boss Markus Luckey, told the newspaper that a failure at the chocolate manufacturer shortly before Christmas during peak production period "would have been a catastrophe".
 
"I'm glad nothing happened at the end of the day," said Luckey. He didn't know exactly what happened to the tank but added: "It was only a small thing. There was no major damage."
 
The chocolate factory is looking "positively ahead into the future", said Luckey, who took over the site three years ago. 
 
The firm has 130 permanent employees, plus 50 to 80 seasonal workers.
 

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