South West and West London hit by water shortage amid coronavirus pandemic

Around 25,000 homes are without water this morning after a major outage hit properties across South West and West London.

It comes as people across the country are stuck indoors to avoid catching or spreading coronavirus, either from self-isolating or sticking to extreme social distancing measures advised by Boris Johnson.

The shortage poses a major health risk amid the worsening pandemic, with scientists and health experts advising that washing your hands regularly can protect you from becoming infected with the deadly disease.

Thames Water confirmed there is low pressure or no water in several South West and West London postcodes today and said engineers were on their way to investigate the problem.




Some people have reported waking up to neither electricity nor water and have voiced cries for help on social media.

One tweeted: ‘Several thousand homes in West London including mine have NO running water and NO electricity as of this morning. This is just a total breakdown of trust of whoever is in charge’.

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Another said: ‘Help! No water in our road in Ealing. We’re self isolating so can’t go out to buy any. Please help us. My neighbours have a baby. Both households need to take medication and we can’t even wash our hands.’

water outages in SW6, SW3, SW10, SW11, W14, SW5 — Jamie Powell (@ajb_powell) March 19, 2020

Could the simultaneous power and water outage in West London now affecting over 25 k homes including mine be deliberate sabotage? Never happened before here #coronavirus — Ghanem Nuseibeh (@gnuseibeh) March 19, 2020

Both the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the NHS have advised people to wash their hands properly to avoid catching coronavirus and to help stem the spread of the illness.

According to the NHS website this is when you should wash your hands:

After using the toilet or changing a nappy

Before and after handling raw foods like meat and vegetables

Before eating or handling food

After blowing your nose, sneezing or coughing

Before and after treating a cut or wound

After touching animals, including pets, their food and after cleaning their cages



Public Health England recommends regularly washing hands for at least 20 seconds with warm water and soap, especially before and after handling food, touching your face, or upon arrival at work or home.

A series of images taken under a special UV light of a person’s hands before and after washing demonstrate exactly why the practice is so important amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

Images taken under a UV light show how many germs are still stuck to hands before washing (left to right), after washing for six seconds with no soap, and after washing with soap for 30 seconds

Thames Water have not said what has caused the outage this morning but have faced a number of similar problems in recent days. Yesterday a burst pipe in King Garth Mews caused people in the SE23 area to go without water while residents in areas of East London faced low pressure or no water on Monday.

A statement posted on the Thames Water website today said: ‘Our specialist engineers are already on their way to investigate the problem, and they will be doing everything they can to get things up and running as quickly as possible.

‘We’re really sorry if this has disrupted your day. We know this has happened at an especially difficult time and we understand the concerns you may have.’

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