Watch: Burst pipe sprays filthy water over Moscow suburb
Credit: Telegram / ostorozhno_moskva / The Insider
A burst pipe is being blamed for spraying a Moscow suburb with filthy water.
Ukrainian observers mockingly claimed that the city’s sewage system had burst, but Russian sources said the more likely cause was damage to a high-pressure water pipe.
Video footage showed an enormous plume of dirty water gushing from a pipe by the side of what appeared to be a construction site for new apartment blocks. The brown-yellow jet was propelled the height of a 10-storey building.
Pro-Ukraine commentators alleged that cars and buildings in the area had been sprayed with human waste.
“A ‘fountain’ the height of a residential building is seen in one of Moscow’s districts. A s--tshow, literally!” said Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry and a popular pro-Ukraine commentator.
Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has drained Russia of cash, and Russians have complained that essential infrastructure, mainly hot water systems and lifts in high-rise buildings, are now only working sporadically.
But reliable Moscow-based Telegram channels reported that instead of a burst sewage system, the dirty water was likely to have been created by high-pressure water being forced through a gas pipeline.
The Watch Out, Moscow channel cited eyewitnesses as saying that they had heard a pop shortly before the fountain of dirty water shot up. In an update it said a gas pipe cleaning technique used by Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, had forced the plume of water into the air.
“Regional Gazprom told us that this is how air is purged for a new section of the gas pipeline. The situation is normal and is under the control of specialists,” it added.
In September, a sewage pipe in the south Chinese city of Nanning sent human waste 10 metres into the air, covering passing drivers and motorcyclists.
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