On 17/10/2020 19:43, nightjar wrote:
On 17/10/2020 18:21, NY wrote:
My parents were one of the 400-odd houses which lost their gas supply
near Aylesbury when a water main burst (which quite an explosion, from
witness reports) and fractured an adjacent gas main, letting water in
the gas main. Apparently the water cause stones in the ground to be
circulated by the cascading water, abrading a hole in the gas pipe.
There have been "lots of" gas vans parked up, as they try to empty the
water and restore gas supplies.

But how do they go about emptying out the water from the pipe? About
1.5 miles of pipe are affected - the houses that have lost their
supply extend about 3/4 mile either side of the burst.

Gas dewatering equipment :-)

AIUI, this is an air or nitrogen powered venturi pump that sucks the
water out into a water trap.


When this happned in West Sussex in 1986, people closest to the
point where an impact mole plough went through a high pressure gas main
after penetrating an adjacent water main, had water squirting out of
their gas appliances !