By Matty Hume, February 4 2019 —

At midday on Feb. 4, water began forcefully spraying out of the ceiling in the Science B hallway outside of the Sustainability Resource Centre office.



Students and onlookers were moved away from the area surrounding the burst pipe by University of Calgary Facilities staff, who also began blocking access for safety and maintenance. The emergency alarm was also quickly sounded in tandem with the area’s evacuation.



Twitter user @cabjgya posted a video of the leak before the evacuation efforts. View the footage below.



Another video, posted by user wailard on the /r/ ucalgary subreddit, shows the moment the pipe began spraying water onto passing students.

As of 1:55 p.m., the leak has been contained.



The leak comes during Calgary’s chilliest day in over a year, with the coldest wind chill values ranging between -40 and -45 C.

UPDATE: According to Dean Parthenis, the senior manager of media and issues management for University Relations, the area will remain closed through the morning of Feb. 5.

“We had a sprinkler line break in the link between Science A & B,” Parthenis said in an email statement to the Gauntlet. “The link will be closed until at least tomorrow morning. The [Calgary Fire Department] was also on scene at one point.”

Reddit user wailard identified himself to the Gauntlet as senior U of C student Dominic Ling. According to Ling, the congestion in the Science A and B link before the pipe burst was abnormal, even by winter standards.

“I was just walking after class from Science A to Science B and there was a lot of congestion in the halls. We rounded the corner and saw that the ceiling was leaking heavily, so we slowed down and I took out my phone to record it,” Ling said. “Moments later, the flow of water got a lot harder and before we knew it the ceiling burst open with a flow of water jetting out.

“I think it hit some people passing by, and then the alarm went off so we left,” he continued. “We came back later after fire crews arrived and the area was taped off, the water was mostly done flowing and you could see ceiling particles everywhere.”

More information will be added once it becomes available.

