Around 11:30 a.m. this Wednesday, a heavyweight carrying 20 tonnes of tar overturned on the A8, at the Nice East interchanges, towards Italy, Vinci Autoroutes said in a press release.
His load spilled over three lanes of traffic, causing severe traffic disruption. At 2:45 p.m., the entrances to Saint‐Isidore, the Nice northern district and Nice center were closed to avoid greater traffic jams.
Up to 12 km of traffic jams
“The road cleaning operations to remove the asphalt will require several hours of intervention. In order to restore traffic conditions as quickly as possible, a shift in traffic in the direction opposite to the accident zone was implemented at 2 p.m. upstream of the Rosti tunnel as far as the A500 junction of the Monaco, over 4 km”, specified Vinci Autoroutes.
In the direction of Nice, “traffic in the opposite direction is only on the right lane”, also indicated the company. Slowdowns were observed over 4 km towards Nice and 12 km towards Italy with a “crossing time of around two hours”, the group further indicated on Twitter. It was only at the end of the afternoon that the traffic “gradually became more fluid”.