What happens when a truck full of eels overturns, deluging cars with slithering creatures? Perhaps, a midday chaos on the road; one such incident during rush hour Thursday caused a car pileup on Highway 101, Oregon, while turning the road into a slimy mess.

The Oregon State Police responded to the incident after the truck — having 13 containers holding 7,500 pounds of hagfish, commonly known as slime eels — was unable to stop when approaching a road construction site. The police said as the driver, Salvatore Tragale, tried to stop the truck, one container fell off the truck bed onto the southbound lane; other eels containers too started spilling onto the highway, reports said.

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The flat bed completely separated from the frame of the truck.

The first container that fell off hit one vehicle which then caused four other vehicles to ram into each other. However, police said passengers in the vehicles hit suffered only minor injuries. No other person was injured in the pileup, the Associated Press reported.

The eels were on their way to being transported to Korea, where the fish is considered a delicacy.

A video was posted by the Depoe Bay Fire Department showing workers using construction equipment to push the eels off the road.

Oregon Department of Transportation tweeted about the incident and asked the highway travelers to use caution in the area.

Social media users posted photographs and videos of the accident that showed hundreds of live slime eels sliding down the road. "When Hagfish become stressed, they secrete a slime, which can be seen in photos of the vehicles in the highway," a statement from Oregon State Police said, according to CNN.

Firefighters were called to hose the creatures off the road.

One of the witnesses Erin Butler told Fox 12 the scene was unbelievable. He said: "We were like, 'What is that?' And then you realise, 'The poor eels." He added: "They were writhing and slimy, and it was unbelievable, just unbelievable,” she said. “It was disgusting. I will definitely never, ever eat eel."

Butler also posted a video on Instagram showing the slithering creatures all over the road.

A post shared by instagram

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Authorities continued working late afternoon to clean the dead hagfish from the side of the road, a state police spokeswoman said, according to reports. She also said that charges are pending for Tragale.

Hagfishes are caught along the West Coast,a nd have unique qualities. The slime, a type of mucus, in a hagfish can expand to more than five gallons when combined with water. To prevent choking on its own slime, a hagfish can "sneeze" out its slime-filled nostril, and also tie its body into a knot so that its own slime does not drip onto its face, a report said.

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