It was not as serious as that here, merely cut off the supply.
Brian

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The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

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"Andrew" wrote in message
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On 10/10/2019 19:17, John wrote:
How can this happen?


A burst water pipe caused problems that left hundreds without gas in
Wirksworth earlier this week.

More than 900 homes were were affected when water from a burst main
entered
the gas network on Tuesday, October 8.


Happened in West Sussex in 1986.

Some workers using a hydraulic mole (which hammers its#
way through the ground), went through both a water main
and a medium pressure gas main.

Water spurted out of cooker hobs and gas boilers etc.

BG shut off the gas to a large part of West Sussex
South of Horsham.

The police commandered our village carpark so that BG
could use it as a base for all their vehicles and they
brought people in from all over the UK to visit
every house and shut off all gas appliances. Anyone at
work came home to find a note saying that the hole in
their drive or pavement was where BG had dug down and
cut and capped the gas supply to the house.

After fixing the damage and flushing out the water they
has to purge and repressurise the entire area and then
revisit every house to get gas appliances running again.

I did find a HSE report on the incident once, but have
forgotten where it was kept.