A burning truck rushes out of a tunnel in Southwest China's Guizhou province on Saturday. (Photo/weibo.com)
If your moving vehicle suddenly catches fire in a tunnel, what would you do? Report the fire? Or leave it, at the risk of it exploding in the tunnel? A Chinese driver did a lot more and prevented a major accident.
A man, surnamed Xiao, drove his fully-loaded truck through a more than 3-kilometer tunnel in Southwest China's Guizhou province when it suddenly caught fire on Saturday. He tried to extinguish the blaze but failed. Worried that the burning vehicle might explode in the tunnel, the driver risked his life by choosing to drive the "burning ball" out of the tunnel.
Smoke blackened his body by the time Xiao and firefighters finally put out the flames with the truck parked outside the tunnel. The vehicle was seriously damaged, with eight rear tires and the truck's cargo totally burned.
Xiao said that the accident was unexpected because the vehicle passed its annual inspection last month. But he guessed that a malfunction of the water spray on the brakes caused the tires to catch fire.
