At approximately 11:30 this morning a 10 wheel, refrigerated delivery truck spun out of control on the Boom-Hattieville road, and left a sea of shrimps littering the edge of the highway.

The truck with its cargo of 21 Thousand pounds of shrimp loaded at 6:30 this morning at the Aquamar Shrimp facility in Mango Creek, was headed to the Belize-Mexico border for exportation to Mexico.

Ricardo Sanchez-Nunez, the Operations Manager of Commercial-liz-adora Ricmar Peninsula, says 2 faulty rear tires blew, as the truck driver tried to hug a curve, just 2miles from Fresh Pond.

Dozens of curious and opportunistic passers-by took advantage of the unsecured scene of the accident, and pillaged whatever amount of shrimp they could carry.

When our team arrived on the scene this afternoon, the efforts by the owners, at trying to salvage as much of the shrimp as possible was still in full swing, with the help of a group of men from the nearby villages of Hattieville, Boom and Fresh pond.

Richardo Sanchez-Nunez - Commercializadora Ricmar Peninsular
"It's an accident, the two back tires exploded, when the tires blew out the vehicle went to one side and broke the support of the container box. The load in the container shifted, and that's what caused the vehicle to turn over on its side. That's how it actually happened. And how much shrimps have been lost? That is a problem for two reasons. One is the climate, the ice has melted. The other reason is that the people they come along, and you tell them not to take it, no matter how u tell them not to take it, they still take the shrimps. It's very difficult to control this type of thing. If we save 70 to 80 percent, that will be very good. This is what we are doing right now, transferring the shrimps to another truck that will take it back to Aquamar in Mango Creek, and we will take off the head, because that's the first thing that spoils, and that's the way we hope to salvage the load."

Jim McFadzean
"How many people, you believe, have benefitted from this accident?"

Floyd Carter - Coordinating Shrimp Recovery
"Well, I think that most of the people who passed by are over 200 people, passing through the Boom Road. We are part of the village, so we just came and assisted these people, you know. And they are from Mexico, so I just came and assisted along with a couple of my friends from Hattieville. We are just trying to make a couple bucks. We are poor people, and we have to eat."

Jim McFadzean
"I noted that the guy who's in charge of the operation said that he was willing to give away some of the shrimp to people who would help him. But most of the people aren't really helping him. It's just a number of you that are out here trying to assist him."

Floyd Carter - Coordinating Shrimp Recovery
"Well, when I came on the scene with some of my fellow brethren from Hattieville, the Mexican offered us a job to pick up most of the shrimps, and he offered us at least about 4 cases of the shrimps, but the passers-by came and picked up the cases - you know, typical Belizean - they came, picked up some of the cases, and walked off with it. And the man was getting annoyed about it. I, as the second for the man - he told me to just take care of the business, and I had to chase them away."

The driver of the truck escaped with injuries that are said to be not life-threatening.

Channel 7