Firefighters were called to the scene of an unusual accident earlier this week in a street in a western German town. Something had caused chocolate to flow out of chocolate factory in Westönnen, coating the pavement.

The German newspaper Soester Anzeiger reported that a “small technical defect” involving a storage tank caused a ton of chocolate to spill out from the DreiMeister chocolate factory. The milk chocolate got out and solidified on the pavement, basically leaving a sweet mess.

About 25 firefighters had to work to break the hardened "ten-square-meter choco-pancake" off with shovels, along with hot water and torches to remove remaining bits from cracks and holes.

All this happened within a few hours.

A similar spill in Nigeria

A few days ago, Pulse reported that a tanker carrying vegetable oil spilled the produce all over the roads in Ebute ero, Lagos. Some of the oil also spilled into the dirty gutters. As a result, some Lagosians jumped on the opportunity to get free oil by grabbing containers and scooping the spilled oil from the gutters.

This oil had mixed with the gutter water but was still being scooped, and would probably be sold or used to cook — the real definition of "awoof dey run belle".

Unfortunately, the prompt response that was accorded to this spill wasn't like the sort given to the chocolate spill in Germany.

It's disturbing to think of what would have happened if the chocolate spill had happened in Nigeria.