Town flooded by wine after 2.2 million liters spill onto streets

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By James Kay

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A town in Portugal has been flooded with 2.2 million liters of wine - which has given a brand new meaning to the phrase "paint the town red".

Having a glass of red after a long day at work is pretty common practice, or perhaps pairing a nice wine with a fancy meal?

Some people will be drunk after one glass, while others can go through an entire bottle and still live to tell the tale - but even for the most avid wine lovers, 2.2 million liters seems excessive.

But if you want to go to the location of the wine spill for unrelated reasons, you can find it in the picturesque town of São Lourenco do Bairro in Portugal.

The town found itself immersed in a sea of red wine when two massive tanks owned by Levira Distillery spilled a staggering 2.2 million liters, per the Daily Mail.

The incident unfolded rapidly on a quiet Sunday, transforming the town into a surreal spectacle as a literal river of red wine coursed down a steep hill towards the nearby Certima River.

The sheer scale of the spill prompted local authorities to issue an environmental alert, fearing the contamination of the Certima River. Anadia Fire Department sprang into action, blocking and diverting the wine away from the river's path, channeling it harmlessly into a field nearby.

One unfortunate (or fortunate depending on your outlook) homeowner found their basement overwhelmed by the wine flood.

Levira Distillery issued an apology for the disastrous event and took immediate steps to mitigate the damage. In a statement, they declared: "We assume full responsibility for the costs associated with cleaning and repairing the damage, having teams available to do so immediately. We are committed to resolving this situation as quickly as possible."

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Work is now ongoing to repair the damage left by the wine. Credit: ASMR/Getty

If the wine spillage has piqued your interest, have you ever heard of the great beer flood in London?

Taking place in St. Giles in the English city, The Horse Shoe Brewery operated on the corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road.

In 1810, the brewery had a 22-foot high wooden fermentation tank installed, which is the equivalent of 3,500 barrels of beer.

Fast forward four years to 1814, and one of the iron rings around the tank snapped, meaning that the hot fermenting beer was unleashed with such power that it ruptured the other vats and smashed a hole in the wall of the brewery.

What followed was around 320,000 gallons of beer rushing down Tottenham Court Road, which at the time was inhabited by those with little money such as criminals and others down on their luck.

Although a flood of beer might sound like a funny story, this incident left a stench in the area for months and sadly claimed the lives of eight people.

A fact that might come in handy in a pub quiz, is that more people (eight in total) were killed in the London Beer Flood of 1814 than were killed in the Great Fire Of London, which claimed six lives, in 1666.

Featured image credit: Scaramanga Photography/Getty