A large water main burst on Chigwell Road in South Woodford on Sunday morning, cutting off water or reducing pressure for thousands of households and commercial premises across east London and Essex.
The outage spans fourteen postcodes: E10, E11, E17, E18, E4, IG10, IG2, IG4, IG5, IG6, IG7, IG8, IG9 and RM4.
Thames Water has not disclosed the exact number of customers affected, but it has set up a bottled‑water distribution point at Fairlop Ice Kingdom on Fairlop Road, Ilford (IG6 3HN). Photographs show queues of residents waiting in their cars to collect supplies.
Engineers have been on site throughout the night and remain on site on Monday evening, excavating and fitting replacement pipework on Daisy Lane. The water company is also delivering bottled water directly to vulnerable customers registered on its Priority Services Register.
A Thames Water spokesperson said: "Our teams are making good progress with the repair at Chigwell Road, which will support our efforts to restore water supplies overnight." The spokesperson added: "Repairs at Daisy Road are also ongoing." The company apologised for the disruption and warned that even after supply is restored, customers may initially experience lower‑than‑normal pressure as the network stabilises.
The bottled‑water station is scheduled to reopen at 09:00 GMT on Tuesday, and Thames Water will issue another update at 09:00 GMT the same day.
First reported by the original source.