Remember that freak story last week about the traffic accident near Szeged that claimed the lives of 100+ pigs? Well, it turns out it wasn’t a freak, because over the last several days there have been two similar stories involving large amounts of food going splat on Hungary’s motorways.
First, the bad news. Sometime yesterday afternoon, a Romanian-registered tractor trailer overturned on Route 4 near Cegléd, spilling 24 tons of oranges on the road. According to various press reports, the section of the roundabout leading to Szolnok was closed while a “rescue” was underway, meaning you should probably look closely at any oranges you buy in the market for the next week or two.
Meanwhile, according to state news wire MTI, a group of unnamed individuals took to the highway near the town of Farmos to save 16,000 frogs that were about to be flattened:
The rescue squad built a long fence along the roadside, quasi-steering the frogs into a series of buckets dug into the ground. As soon as a bucket filled with frogs, rescue workers would grab it and run across the road, doing their own best to avoid oncoming trucks.
Just in case you are wondering what would motivate people to risk being run down by orange-and pig-stuffed tractor trailers and similar hazards, we’d only point out that 16,000 frogs equals roughly 32,000 juicy békacomb, or frogs’ legs.
