Chinese truck driver stews as villagers poach pears after truck crash
Villagers near the scene of a highway traffic accident in China helped themselves to 20 tonnes of pears that literally fell off the back of a truck.
The load of pears worth 80,000 yuan (HK$97,000) spilled across a highway and into a nearby field after the truck – which had travelled all the way from Shandong province, about 1,500km away – tipped over at dawn on Wednesday outside Chengdu, Sichuan province, Huaxi100.com reports.
The villagers, some of them elderly, started showing about an hour after the accident, and more followed with baskets and bags, a witness surnamed Wang said.
The villagers were well-organised: some filled the bags with pears, others loaded these in nearby cars and vans, while others drove the fruit back to the village, Wang said.
A traffic policeman and the truck driver tried to stop the villagers, without success, as they waited for a crane to arrive.
The owner of the pears, who showed up at about 9am, said the fruit was damaged and could not be sold, and invited the villagers to take what was left.
Windfalls of produce from truck accidents are not uncommon in China. In March this year, almost seven tonnes of live catfish spilled from a truck in Kaili, Guizhou province after its rear door was jolted after driving over a bump in the road.
