Weird Carbon Dioxide Leak Turns German City Into Fog Machine

Leaking carbon dioxide created this weird fog
in Mainz, Germany last week.  

Just before Christmas, a tanker truck full of carbon dioxide pulled up next to a Champagne producers building in Germany.

I guess they were getting ready for the holidays.

Something went wrong, and the carbon dioxide leaked from the truck.

The result was this weird fog of carbon dioxide, no more than waist high, covering some of the streets in central Mainz, Germany.

The carbon dioxide was heavier than the surrounding air and clung close to the ground. It was so thick that nobody could drive their cars out. The visibility was too low.

People in the neighborhood were warned to stay out of basements and some first floors, since the high concentration of carbon dioxide would crowd out the oxygen, potentially asphyxiating people.

The superchilled carbon dioxide slightly injured the truck driver involved.

The carbon dioxide eventually dispersed, adding a tiny little bit to the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet.

Here's a video of the incident: It's a news account of the leak in German, but you'll get the point: