An estimated 3,000 properties in North London have been affected by a gas outage. On Sunday, January 12, water entered the local gas pipes in Muswell Hill, Colney Hatch, and Hornsey due to a burst water main at the intersection of Roman Road and Sydney Road.

Although Affinity and Cadent repaired the leak, the significant amount of water that entered the gas network has left some homes and businesses in the area without gas. In certain streets, the water has also traveled through gas meters, affecting gas appliances.

More than 100 engineers have been deployed to the site, with the initial task of turning off the gas supply at each property. Cadent has not specified how long the restoration will take, as it depends on the extent of water infiltration in the gas network.

Customers were informed by Cadent that all it takes to clog a service line is an egg cup of water. Cadent will return gas once all of the water has been removed from the gas pipes.

After that, each home needs to be inspected once more in order to perform a safety inspection and reactivate the gas supply. According to Cadent, "this all takes time," thus the issue is anticipated to continue over the weekend.

"We have to go to every property that is impacted and make sure the gas supply is turned off properly and safely," stated Stephanie van Rosse, Cadent's media relations manager.

"Once this has been completed, we can start pumping water out of the gas pipes. We don't know how long this will take as it will depend how much water flooded the gas network.

"It can take just half an egg cup full of water to block a service pipe- the pipe leading to a property. When we have all the water out of the gas pipes we can introduce gas again.

"We then have to visit every property again to carry out safety check and turn the gas supply back on. This all takes time and will depend upon the amount of water in the gas pipes.

"We expect this incident to go into the weekend. We have engineers from across the country coming to the area trying to get people back on gas as quickly as possible."

Engineers will carry on going door-to-door to turn off gas supplies over the next few days. Residents have been asked not to try to turn off their own.