A massive diesel-powered trencher used in a coal strip mining operation suddenly malfunctioned yesterday, tearing across the countryside in the Ruhr region of Germany. The machine destroyed farm fields and left a smoldering swath of destruction through a small village before it finally came to a halt on the other side of the town. During its three-hour rampage, the trencher ripped a 15m (50ft.) deep trench across pastures and highways, then continued its destructive path through the center of Gelsenkirchen.

The monster machine, dubbed “Bagger 288,” in reference to the number of cubic meters of coal it can unearth every minute, weighs 45,000 tons and stands as tall as a 30-story office building. The trencher can travel five miles and excavate more than 17,000 cubic meters of coal (or anything else for that matter) in an hour. Fortunately no one was hurt in the incident as townspeople were ordered to evacuate while the giant machine closed in on the community. Pandemonium ensued as thousands of frightened residents scrambled for safety.

The mine trencher, built by Krupps (yep, the same people who make those nice coffee makers), experienced an apparent software malfunction and lurched out of the open-pit coal mine. The machine, which travels on an enormous set of tracks, headed straight for the village, just 3 miles away. Officials in the town evacuated the town’s residents just before the massive digger entered the outskirts. The machine literally cut the tiny town in half before running out of fuel in a sheep pasture a couple miles away.

“I’ve never seen such destruction,” exclaimed Fredrik Walling, mayor of the town. “I haven’t seen a town cut in two like this since Berlin!”

Officials at the mine were puzzled and offered no clues as to what caused the machine’s control system to fail.

“In it’s thirty years of operation it’ has never done anything like this,” said Eduard Froehlich, safety officer for Deutsche Steinkholle, which leases and operates the hulking machine. “It eats an occasional car in the mine, but nothing quite like this. Very unfortunate.”