Hundreds of homes flooded by ‘river of water’

Hundreds of homes in Limerick were hit by flooding before dawn yesterday as a "river of water" flowed around them after a water mains pipe burst.

Ger Sheahan, a senior engineer with Limerick City and County Council, said that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, there was no associated public health risk after it emerged the broken pipe was made of asbestos cement.

“You don’t cut the pipe, you take away any broken material or take away whole pipe (sections) and replace with another (non-asbestos) pipe, and seal it in polyplastic, 40-gauge bags. You store it and secure it in a compound and dispose of it correctly.”

Asbestos cement was widely used to make most of the country’s network of water pipes.

Mr Sheahan said the local authority responded quickly to the burst pipe at Brookville Avenue in Caherdavin after receiving a call from a member of the public at around 5am.

The areas hit included Caherdavin, Brookville Avenue, Woodview Park, Shanamore Park, Cratloe Rd, Brookville Gardens, and Limerick Institute of Technology. Brookville Avenue was closed to motorists for several hours for “health and safety reasons”, Mr Sheahan said.