Story By: John Feng, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

These images show firefighters rescuing a handful of frightened goslings after 4,000 of the young geese were roasted alive on the back of a burning lorry.

The blaze occurred on the Nanchang-Shangli Express over the city of Gao’an, which is in Yichun City in China’s eastern Jiangxi Province.

According to the lorry driver hauling the shipment of young geese worth some 40,000 RMB (4,570 GBP), he stopped his vehicle on the hard shoulder after noticing the smell of burning.

Pictures Credit: AsiaWire

He then noticed the entire cargo area of the lorry ablaze, together with the thousands of young goslings he was delivering.

The Gao’an fire service said they received a report about the vehicle fire at 12:41pm on 28th May.

They arrived 20 minutes later and spent another five minutes putting out the fire, which had engulfed the entire backend of the lorry and roasted nearly all of the young birds alive.

Only roughly 30 goslings survived the accident. Some were found hiding underneath the lorry while others had run off the motorway.

The young birds were rescued by firefighters and taken away in fire engines.

The surviving goslings are still expected to be delivered to their owner, but it is unclear whether the shipment of animals was insured.

The delivery driver said he did not know how the fire started, with the incident still under investigation.