Toppled truck on C-5 Road ruins day for thousands

Traffic came to a crawl for about seven hours in Pasig City and areas extending all the way to Edsa after a 10-wheel truck carrying gravel fell on its side early Thursday morning on C-5 Road.

It was the second major incident involving trucks on C-5 since Friday when a 16-wheeler swerved after losing its brakes, hit a wall and triggered a 10-vehicle collision that killed a motorcycle rider and wounded at least eight others, including two children.

Nobody was hurt in Thursday’s mishap but, like last week’s accident, it sent thousands fuming in the bottleneck traffic during the morning rush hour.

Around 2:45 a.m., the 10-wheel truck toppled over and spilled almost three tons of gravel on the southbound lane of the Bagong Ilog flyover in a section of C-5 that cuts through Pasig, according to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.

The driver, Ferdinand Bukid, told investigators that the truck’s air brakes suddenly stopped working, forcing him to ram the vehicle into a concrete barrier on the center island. The impact caused the truck to fall on its side.

It took the MMDA seven hours to clear the area and impound the truck.—Kristine Felisse Mangunay, Maricar Brizuela