Water main break floods houses in Vancouver

A major water main break flooded a number of homes in Vancouver on Monday.

The five-metre long pipe broke around 2 p.m. near Oak Street and West 29th Avenue. There was as much as one to two feet of water in the street in some places.

“It was sort of like a river going on,” resident Jagjit Pabla said. “There was so much water. It was coming out; the earth was shaking like somebody was pounding a hammer on it.”

Resident Solly Khalifa said the basements in five of the six houses on his block were “very flooded.”

“There’s definitely going to be some insurance claims made,” Khalifa said.

Daniel Roberge, the City of Vancouver’s director of water and sewage, said they are working with the “dozen or so” houses that were affected.

The City of Vancouver confirms water was restored to homeowners by midnight Monday. Crews are back this morning to finish the work.

The city is recommending affected homeowners contact their insurance companies.

“When the weather goes from warm to cold at this time of year, it’s seasonal, and yes we have aging infrastructure that we have to work into upgrading,” Roberge said.

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—With files from Jennifer Palma