LONDON FIRE BRIGADEA hotel was evacuated after a burst water main caused flooding near King’s Cross station in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) said eight fire stations and around 60 firefighters responded to the incident, which affected an area of around 250 square metres on Pentonville Road.
About 20 people from a nearby hotel were evacuated by rescue workers due to the flooding, LFB said.
The brigade was called at 04:07 CET and dispatched mobile flood barriers and specialised water rescue teams to the scene.
Pentonville Road is closed to traffic between Penton Rise and King’s Cross Road.
Islington Council has asked people to avoid the area while emergency services respond.
According to Transport for London, eleven bus routes were diverted on Sunday morning.
These are bus lines 17, 30, 46, 63, 73, 91, 205, 214, 259, 390 and 476.
LONDON FIRE BRIGADEThames Water was approached for comment. In an update to customers on Sunday morning, it said: “We are sorry if you have been affected by the recent burst pipe on Pentonville Road.”
It added that engineers were on site and were “working hard to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.”
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In addition, support teams were “on the road” to help customers with low pressure or no water.
Tina Hodgkinson, who lives in Killick Street, off Pentonville Road, said she was woken at around 4am by what she thought was heavy rain.
“I looked out the window and it wasn’t raining, but I could see there was a stream of water running down Pentonville Road,” she told the BBC.
Although she said a barrier had been put in place where the road meets Pentonville Road, her house was not affected by flooding or water outages on Sunday morning.
LFB said firefighters would monitor the flood-affected area using a drone and that traffic in the area would be “severely disrupted.”
Crews from Euston, Islington, Soho and surrounding fire stations were on site on Sunday morning.
The Metropolitan Police said its officers were assisting the fire service, while the city council said members of its emergency response team were also at the scene.
