A 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 due to the flooding, while the basements of “several” residential and commercial properties were affected, LFB said.
The fire service was called at 04:07 CET and reported on Sunday afternoon that floodwaters near King’s Cross were “receding” but traffic was still “severely disrupted”.
The LFB has deployed mobile flood barriers and specialised water rescue teams on site.
Pentonville Road is closed to traffic between Penton Rise and King’s Cross Road.
Islington Council urged people to avoid the area while emergency services respond. Emergency services advised shops along the street, including Sainsbury’s, to temporarily close.
According to Transport for London, eleven bus routes were diverted on Sunday.
These are bus lines 17, 30, 46, 63, 73, 91, 205, 214, 259, 390 and 476.
Thames Water expressed its “sorrow to customers affected” by the burst water main.
It further said that engineers were on site while support teams were assisting affected customers.
“Our engineers identified the pipe break, shut off the main water supply to the broken pipe and had to temporarily close a section of the road to allow them to work safely and allow the excess water to drain away,” it said in a statement.
In February, the water utility announced a £20 million project to replace Victorian water mains in the area over the next three years.
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 were surveying the flood-affected area using a drone and that traffic in the area would be “severely disrupted”.
On Sunday, teams from Euston, Islington, Soho and surrounding fire stations were on site.
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.
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