MORE than 30 firefighters were called to Pembroke Dock shortly after midday yesterday, August 23, when water main has been struck at the site of the new Aldi store, causing flooding at nearby properties.

At least six fire engines from Pembroke Dock and Milford Haven, along with a specialist appliance from Ammanford, are at the scene at the London Road site where the new store is currently taking shape.

Witnesses nearby said they understood that a water main had been struck at the building site.

Firefighters were using pumps to try to prevent nearby buildings flooding, including caravans.

Two major pumps, four featherweight pumps, one darley pump and a high volume pump were used by the Fire Service to tackle the flood while Welsh Water repaired the water main.

Firefighters left the incident at 5.22pm.

Water from the damaged main has poured into the nearby Orchard Caravan Site, with the nearest caravan, number four, hit particularly hard.

Site owner Len Thomas said: “It was a shock, it’s been going on for a good hour, it’s flooding in and coming up the caravan site; it’s about four or five foot high by number four.”

He said number four, by the fence adjoining the Aldi site, was probably “a scrapper” after the water damage.

Fortunately, number four’s occupant wasn’t in at the time of the burst main, Mr Tomas said.

He praised the role of the firefighters attending, saying: “The fire people are brilliant, all I can say is the fire people have turned up and been good as gold, 100 per cent.”

A Welsh Water spokesman said: "We were alerted this afternoon that a third party had caused damage to one of our water mains in Pembroke Dock. "This has resulted in a significant volume of water escaping from the water main on to the local highway. We are now working with the local fire service to help avoid customers’ homes from flooding. “There is no impact yet on the drinking water supplies to local customers and we are doing everything we can to maintain supplies. However, this will be a very challenging emergency repair and the safety of our people, and colleagues in the emergency services, is paramount.

“We will be liaising with the local contractor to determine why this happened and to confirm if they had used safe digging techniques. Our water network helps us provide the most essential of public services and so it is important that it is protected at all times.” Contractors A Harden & Sons deny any involvement in the damage to the water mains.

Adam North of A Harden & Sons said they were helping deal with the damage caused.

“We’re helping the fire brigade at moment; my boss’s tractor is moving a slurry tanker.”

A Harden & Sons later issued a statement: “This issue at site is nothing to do with A Harden & Sons or Jenco Intl LTD. The excavator involved was on hire from Parker Plant with an operator to a knotweed removal company operating on site.

“We're working with the Fire Service Commander and firefighters on site to assist with pumping the flood water away.”

Speaking after the event, A Welsh Water spokesman said: “We can confirm that the damage caused to our water main by a local contractor – who was not working for Welsh Water - has now been repaired. Given the size of the water main, we could not simply switch off the drinking water supplies immediately to start fixing the damage otherwise this would have impacted on supplies to around 7,000 customers in the local area.

“We manged to use different parts our network to maintain water supplies to the overwhelming majority of customers in Pembroke before starting to repair the damaged water main. While this repair work did temporarily impact on supplies to some customers, the water main has now been fixed, refilled and is working normally.”