Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
Crikey, it seems there’s been some sort of serious traffic accident here in Baghdad. I wonder what happened?
Whatever happened, given the state of the traffic, I can’t say I’m that surprised… :-/ That isn’t an isolated example eiter - the traffic’s like that all over the place!
Scary stuff.
Thanks to Marco Olivo, Gydo Matthijssen, Bleij and rob.
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Im thinking more along the lines of a RPG attack or something. This is Baghdad.
Well of course it could be Rob, but it definitely involves traffic…
Good point…good point…:D
Yeah, I was going to say that unfortunately it does look like an RPG or Roadside Bomb attack. I’ve never seen a car produce that much smoke after a collision.
I’m guessing it’s a car fire, which often results in a dark billowing cloud of smoke, and lots of it! Google Image “car fire” and check out the results.
Not to mention there doesn’t appear to be any military or emergency vehicles in the immediate neighborhood. I’m sure that if this were an attack, the authorities would be making their presence known.
hmmm, i was going to say it looked like a… Carbomb? but i think spedangel is right. a car fire is a bit more likely as cars over there are subjected to an awful lot of “abuse”. also, how many times a year do you think a poor iraqi brings his car the the shop for service?
It makes me sad that this is the only car “wreck” that I know to be posted anywhere on any google map oddity website. You think that more could be found and that they would be posted all over. Maybe its just the whiskey in me, or the fact that the cars might be too tiny to see little itty-bitty wrecks, but it makes me sad.
one time during the beginning of the war, i was watching a baghdad webcam of the parking lot outside of the big hotel, well there was only space for 1 car to get in and out of the parking lot, and people kept getting stuck. well finally one guy got out of his car AND PUNCHED THE OTHER DRIVER. i couldnt believe I was watching this from thousands of miles away!!! I just wish i recorded it somehow.
tggb3k: http://perljam.net/google-satellite-maps/id/9348/United_Kingdom//Belfast/TRANSIENT__Some_sort_of_spillage/accident_causing_a_major_problem
DIA was pretty sure this time that it was Saddam’s car.
Anyway, it looks to me like there’s a long part behind the smoke which looks sort of like a tanker trailer. The flames are coming from a similarly-colored object which looks too small to be a car on its own. Between the smoke and the “tanker trailer” looks like an amorphous mass. Could this be a truck hauling some liquid that broke apart?
PS Pan further east to see another truck, in the median.
The smoke looks pretty ordinary for any car fire. Not to say that an IED didn’t start it though.
The traffic jam looks very similar to somthing I’ve become quite used to in San Juan, a traffic jam caused by power failure. Any big intersection becomes a mad house.
Aaron/Tggb3k, This traffic accident/spill was pointed out in the Belfast Dockyard post. See http://googlesightseeing.com/2006/02/23/belfast-docklands/#comments I do agree, though- perhaps a wreck mega-post is in the works…
marijuana just got legalized in iraq..
WELL IM GOING TO IRAQ
My bet is it IS an IED. Look closely and there are groups of people on every street corner up and down the road and on both sides. I can’t imagine that kind of turn out for a car fire. Also, notice the cars downroad detouring across the shoulder to avoid the incident. Again, not necessarily something you would do to avoid an average car fire. I also think you can see damage to the road a couple of carlengths from the burning car.
I bet that one in Iraq is a car bomb.
I think I have pinned down the date of this burning vehicle. Here is the original DigitalGlobe photograph used by Google Earth.
http://archive.digitalglobe.com/archive/showBrowse.php?catID=10100100033B8A04
It is dated Sep 07, 2004. You can see the smoke midway top to bottom, and half way from the center to left edge.
There are some fairly comprehensive web sites that log attacks in Baghdad. There were some roadside bombs and RPG attacks on that day, but they were all in the northeast part of Baghdad. Here’s a news release.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2004/09/mil-040907-centcom01.htm
This burning vehicle is in western Baghdad. A traffic accident probably wouldn’t have made the news. And since attempting to eliminate other possibilities doesn’t make a proof, it’s still an open question.