spaghetti
Plates of Jolly Spaghetti is pictured inside a Jollibee franchise in BF Homes Paranaque, Metro Manila, March 3, 2016. Reuters/Erik De Castro

A heaping helping of pasta shut down traffic in an English town Monday. Some 22 tons of pre-made spaghetti bolognese flew out of a truck onto a highway between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, reported the Shropshire Star.

The incident put a strain on traffic, which was shut down for several hours in both directions. Images of the accident show the pasta-toting truck on top of spaghetti, all covered in cheese. Everything from the wheels of the truck to shrubbery surrounding the road got a serving of the saucy cargo.

It remains unclear exactly how the Italian feast ended up on the A5 Shotatton crossroads. "Mystery surrounds how so much pasta and tomato ended up on the highway," piles of which appeared like "orange snow drifts," along the hedgerow next to the road, wrote the Shropshire Star.

"Shortly after 11:30 a.m. today we received a report of a lorry shedding its load of pasta and sauce on the A5 at Shottaton," West Mercia Police said in a statement. "Highways and the environment agency is aware and dealing. Diversions are in place and the road is expected to be closed for several hours."

But police were unable to dish out how the pasta spilled. The driver of the vehicle declined to comment to the Shropshire Star, staying in the cab of his truck while waiting for the spaghetti bolognese to be cleared.

"There were around 20 [tons] of spaghetti bolognese and it was just loose ... it appears no [one] was hurt which is the main thing," a police spokesman told the Star. "The food is so thick and gloopy that it will take several hours to clear it up."