Major M6 delays as acid spillage and shed load cause traffic chaos
Commuters on the M6 faced a nightmare start to the week when an acid spillage and shed load closed two stretches of the motorway during rush hour.
The M6 was closed southbound near Birmingham for more than two hours after the acid spillage, while two lanes were shut northbound near Cannock due to the shed load.
Drivers were hit with delays of at least an hour after sulphuric acid spilled from the lorry, closing the southbound road from Junction 4a for the M42 to Junction 4 for the M42/A446.
Police officers tweeted shortly before 6am to warn drivers of major delays while the motorway was cleared.
Paramedics and specialist fire crews from Warwickshire joined police on the scene and the road was declared safe by 7.30am.
Southbound traffic was diverted along the M42 until the three-mile stretch of the M6 was fully open again at 8.15am.
The detour added more than an hour onto the normal driving time, with M6 traffic backed up to Spaghetti Junction.
Meanwhile northbound drivers in Staffordshire faced delays of around 45 minutes after a lorry shed its load on the M6 at around 7.30am.
Two lanes of the carriageway were blocked between Junction 12 for Cannock and Junction 13 for Stafford while debris and diesel were cleared from the motorway.
And although the road was back fully open at 8.15am, traffic was halted again at 12pm for emergency resurfacing work, causing delays of up to 90 minutes.
One land was back open by 12.45pm but the resurfacing work was not expected to finish until around 5pm.
Four vehicles were damaged by metal which had fallen from the lorry but nobody was injured, while the driver was reported for driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition.
