Milk tanker ploughs through 3 houses

[kellyhound]

Tanker wipes out three houses | NATIONAL | NEWS | tvnz.co.nz

-New Zealand-
A number of residents in the Hawke's Bay community of Waipawa are homeless but grateful to be alive after a milk tanker smashed through three homes.

The fully laden Fonterra truck ripped three houses apart when it went off State Highway Two at Waipawa at about 7pm Saturday.

"The ground shook, it was like an earthquake, tied in with a bomb...it was horrible," Kesla Hema said.

The truck clipped the front rooms of one house, before tunnelling through the second and finally smashing into a third.

"I've never seen anything like this before," said deputy chief fire officer Gordon Annand who has served nearly 47 in the fire service.

Eyewitness Bruce Oliver says the truck driver said he was choking on a lolly.

No one was home in the first two houses but his uncle in the third house was recovering from a broken ankle.

"His dog leapt out of his lap and jumped out the back window and he said he heard the rumble and just braced himself because he imagined something bad was coming but didn't know what it was and the next thing he had a truck sitting beside him," Paul Sunley said.

As tow trucks pulled the tanker from his home, the victim is in hospital with two broken bones in his other leg from being hit by the fireplace.

The home is ruined - a double blow for the family because Sunley's mother lived next door in the second house which was also ruined.

Sunley says his mother is lucky to be alive but two of her five cats were killed and the other three are still missing.

Incredibly the driver escaped with only minor injuries. He spent the night in hospital and has been spoken to by police.

Fonterra, which has launched its own investigation, says he is an experienced driver with 10 years behind the wheel.

[RW1]

... the truck driver said he was choking on a lolly.

Bloody frigg'in hell. That's going to be an expensive lolly-pop.