Work to fully repair North Circular Road after a burst water main could take days according to Thames Water.

Engineers are working round the clock to repair the North Circular Road after a burst water main caused severe damage to the carriageway yesterday.

Litres of water gushed out of the 24in pipe, forcing its way through the tarmac road which was left raised and cracked as several feet of water flooded underneath the Brent Cross Flyover.

The pipe supplies water to 16,000 properties, all of which would have been affected at some level.

Engineers worked through the night to fix the broken pipe which is now fully restored.

Craig Rance, a spokesman for Thames Water, said: “This has been a complex job due to a large gas pipe which runs next to the water pipe but we managed to get this done in the early hours of this morning."

The east-bound carriageway is fully open and two lanes west-bound are open.

Tilling Road, which runs adjacent to the A406 and was damaged in the burst, has also been reopened this morning.

But work to resurface the west-bound carriageway might not be finished until Monday morning.

Once this is complete, the next step will be to discover what caused the problem in the first place.

Mr Rance said: “Until we take the broken pipe away and look at it we won’t be able to say what the reason behind the leak was. But at the moment I think the age of the pipe might be a factor.”

Thames Water spends nearly £1billion a year on upgrading its infrastructure, including replacing older pipes which are likely to burst.

Mr Rance said: “We have got 20,000 miles of pipes and some of them are old so we do get bursts, but we do invest in our network.

“We monitor our network and identify pipes that are either prone to or at risk of bursting, and prioritise them. Sometimes its because of their age, sometimes it’s one with a history of bursting.

“In an ideal world we would have no bursts but as a water company we prepare so we can react fast to get things back to normal as quickly as we possibly can.”

Approximately 20 engineers are currently working at the scene, and more will continue to work through the night.

Mr Rance added: “We will be working throughout until we get the job done. We’re really sorry for the inconvenience caused to people.”