Burst pipe leaves 9,000 without water

Published on Monday 6 July 2009 01:00

MORE than 9,000 people were left without running water yesterday afternoon after a water pipe burst.

Households in Cumbernauld were given bottled water while Scottish Water engineers repaired the broken main.

Customers were warned that there may be some discolouration to their water supply when it came back on yesterday evening.

They were advised to run their kitchen taps for a couple of minutes until the water ran clear.

Scottish Water apologised for any inconvenience the burst main may have caused.

Raymond O'Brien, operations manager for Scottish Water, said: "We had the potential for about 30,000 of our customers to be affected but the quick thinking of our engineers reduced that to about 9,000.

"It took us some time to actually get down to the pipe and repair the pipe.

"Scottish Water has prided itself recently on reducing the number of these incidents and over the past few years it has certainly reduced dramatically."

The bottled water was first distributed from Cumbernauld Asda and then moved to the Central Health Centre on North Carbrain Road.

Last night it was still being made available, but the firm insisted that the mains supply of water would be sufficient while repairs were completed.