SH1 north of Wellington closed until at least 8pm at the beginning of the long weekend

Firefighters and emergency services personnel are working hard to eliminate a "variety" of hazardous chemicals, mainly paint products, that have spilled out when a truck goes out of service. crashed on State Highway 1 north of Wellington on Friday.

The New Zealand Transportation Agency (NZTA) announced that the road would not reopen until 8 pm, after the truck loaded with Mainfreight chemicals crashed at 3:45 am. The driver was slightly injured.

The trucks have been stranded for miles since the early morning, with no way out of the stalemate.

A spokesman for the fire and emergency services said that a definitive list of chemicals had not yet been established, but that they were "numerous".

The spokesman did not want to speculate on what some of these chemicals might be.

Staff was trying to manually remove hazardous chemicals from the truck-trailer unit, which made cleaning a "slow and slow process".

NZTA said that because of the nature of the chemicals, the release of the vehicle and lanes was a "complex operation".

A convoy of trucks of several kilometers is waiting for the reopening of SH1, as motorists prepare to leave Wellington for the long weekend.

At one point, SH1 and SH2 were closed on Friday. Light vehicles can take the windy, windy road of Paekākariki Hill, but trucks can not.

NZTA Regional Transportation Manager Mark Owen said: "If people leave the city, they have to think of an alternative at this point, and it will certainly take a lot longer if they take another route. "

Booth's truck driver, Max Wyllie, is stuck in a line of trucks and buses for about 5:30 am, which he covers from the Paraparaumu exit, 20 km away.

"There may be a dozen refrigerated trucks along the bay here … their machines run on separate batteries and can last up to about 10 hours."

Wyllie said that bus passengers stopped in the traffic and stopped to walk to Paekākāriki station after about two hours of absence.

"Most of the drivers who are here since 4 or 5 am have to take ferries."

He added that some drivers phoned their deposit to exceed the legal limit of 14 consecutive hours and did not have to record hours spent in traffic, which meant that some would not be paid for the hours spent stuck there. .

A spokesman for the Greater Wellington Regional Council said that a service officer was on hand to assess the environmental impact of the chemical spill, but it was not known yet whether the spill would impact on the waterways.

Heavy vehicles have not been able to use the Plimmerton SH1 for Paekakariki until further notice. They were asked to avoid the area. However, light vehicles could still access the road.