It was like a snowstorm in summer.

There was a white-out in a road in Feering when a lorry shed its load of thousands of tiny polystyrene balls.

Children passing by found it funny and climbed on to the unusual mounds before the clean-up operation started.

The lorry shed its load as it came off the London-bound A12 at Feering near the bridge past the end of the slip road at 4.50pm yesterday.

Police sealed off one lane of the slip road for an hour while contractors from Essex County Council and Braintree Council shovelled up the debris.

A police spokeswoman said: "There was no danger to members of the public and the spill did not affect traffic flow."

Eyewitness Lindsey Cornes, of London Road, Kelvedon, said: "We were passing in the car when it happened. It was like snow, it was all white. The children loved it."

The polystyrene balls were of the type used for parcel packaging.

A white corner of Essex - the aftermath of the lorry spill

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.