A Christchurch truck driver has discovered international internet fame after he filmed a runaway water tank hurtling down a Canterbury highway during yesterday's freak winds.
The video of the 30,000 litre tank has gone viral on Facebook and now has more than 2.6 million hits.
"It got closer and closer, and faster, and faster, and I thought this is cool ... and then it jumped the fence, jumped the railway line, and cruising down State Highway 73. I thought this is the best thing I've ever seen," truckie Jake Taylor told ONE News.
"Me mate, he got his camera out and he was snap chatting it, and I thought 'nah this is better than Snapchat'."
Mr Taylor thought the tank was tearing down the highway, and dodging traffic at about 50km/h.
"[It] was heading towards a milk tanker coming towards it ... and hit two spud boxes. Demolished them."
He said he was receiveing calls from across the globe about the video.
"Someone else ringing for another interview, someone over in America now. It's going viral. It's going mad."
The tank, which had little damage, has now been securely fastened to a shed at a timber yard in Darfield.
The release of the 2008 film Taken has been the focus of this afternoon’s hearing against MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom and his co-accused.
Lawyers for Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk are currently attempting to have the extradition hearing thrown out, and in doing so are picking apart the case put forward by prosecutors for US authorities.
One of the claims against the men is that Bram van der Kolk uploaded a pirated, pre-release copy of Taken, starring Liam Neeson.
He sent the link to friends, and it was downloaded nine times.
However Mr van der Kolk’s lawyer Grant Illingworth says the movie wasn’t a pre-release copy at all – because while the movie wasn’t yet showing in US theatres in 2008, it was available in many other parts of the world.
Mr Illingworth proceeded to list all the countries where the film was released at the time - France, Israel, China, South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey, Romania, Indonesia, Mexico, Spain, Australia, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, South Africa, Argentina, Russia, Thailand, Panama, Venezuela, United Kingdom, Ireland, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia and Croatia.
The film was released in the United States in 2009.
