Ever wondered what the fiery pits of Dante's inferno look like? Well, we've got a pretty good idea now thanks to these dramatic images of a giant hoverboard massacre.
A batch of hoverboards imported from Hong Kong was seized at London's Heathrow Airport and destroyed by the Surrey County Council last week after they were found to have faulty battery packs and potentially explosive features, the Evening Standard reported Thursday.
The council released a series of photos of the hoverboards after they were destroyed. Many boards caught fire during this process and had to be doused with a fire extinguisher, according to Mashable. Their remains were crushed and recycled, along with our hopes and dreams of never having to walk short distances again.
Hoverboards kind of had it coming, though. The devices have an unfortunate history of overheating and bursting into flames within seconds. Some self-balancing scooter explosions have caused dangerous house fires, one of which killed two dogs in California last month.
The devices have acquired such a widespread reputation as fireballs on wheels that many retailers no longer carry them. Amazon stopped selling some of the more notably dangerous brands last year, and quietly pulled all hoverboard models from their site Wednesday, according to Digital Trends.
But while we're at it, lets take a moment to remember some of the good times that the boards have brought us. Like this boy group's sublime coordinated hoverboard dance routine to Justin Bieber's "What Do You Mean?" that established self-balancing scooter dance as a divinely powerful art form.
Or this acrobatic dance sequence to Bieber's "Sorry" (what is it with Bieber songs and hoverboards?) that captured the hearts and souls of a generation and reinstated our faith in there one day being a harmonious relationship between humanity and the technology that will surely replace us.
Or that time some dude dressed up like Aladdin and took to the streets on his trusty "magic carpet." That was pretty sweet.
And yet, flames or no flames, hoverboards are still not entirely without fault. The Internet is teeming with fail videos of people mounting and subsequently falling off of hoverboards. These serve as painful -- very painful -- reminders of the cost of attempting to tame the wild, wheeled beasts.
While many hoverboards are still on the market and reportedly still safe to ride, the Surrey County hoverboard massacre of 2K16 is a symbol of the hoverboard's fall from grace as the coolest new trend in minimal-effort mobility. Though they're definitely still the hottest.
So RIP, hoverboards. We'll see you in hell.
