Video: East London Residents Rush to Buy Bottled Water Following Large Pipe Burst in Main Supply

Thousands of residences in East London were left without water beginning Tuesday afternoon, prompting residents to clear local supermarket shelves of drinking water.

Local residents reported on social media an ongoing water shortage beginning Tuesday at around 4.30 p.m. BST, but Thames Water was only able “to identify exactly where on the pipe the water is escaping from” by midnight.

Thames Water said that a large burst in a 42-inch-diameter pipe was the cause.

The company said that they were “receiving a high volume” of tweets reporting the issue, and stated that their engineers were “continuing to work through the night to get things back to normal”.

"We’re planning the repair of this 42-inch-diameter pipe, while continuing to pump water into our network using a fleet of tankers," the company said. "We’re really sorry if this has affected your water, particularly at this difficult time. The complex work needed to fix the pipe is likely to cause a significant impact on local supplies over the next 24 hours."

Videos of people rushing to buy bottled water from supermarkets emerged online.