Two men narrowly escape being crushed as large wall collapses due to burst pipe

Two men were forced to make a swift getaway after a wall crumbled before them in Yorkshire. Video footage, recorded on Wakefield Road in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, captures two men positioned in front of a 20-foot wall, behind which sat a garden that had become flooded with water.

The footage then reveals the wall buckling under the strain, almost engulfing the two men before they fled down the road as water rushed around nearby vehicles. In the aftermath, residents have criticised water company Yorkshire Water for their slow response to the pipe, which ruptured on 20 June. Local inhabitants have since discussed the events preceding the burst water main, with one resident, Kris Yates, 45, alleging the problem was initially reported to Yorkshire Water at 5am, yet engineers failed to arrive until four hours later at 9am.

Yorkshire Water, however, has maintained they first became aware of the situation at 6.20am and reached the location by around 9am, stating the incident was treated as high priority.

By this point the water, which had been steadily climbing, had reached the summit of the wall that subsequently collapsed and cascaded down the street, pouring into adjacent gardens, upending wheelie bins, and allegedly destroying several cars.

Kris, a plasterer, mentioned that one of his neighbours had stated they were now missing £20,000 worth of koi carp due to the incident. Recounting the story, Kris said: “I got woken up by my neighbour at 5.30am saying his garden was starting to flood. I didn’t realise the extent the water was building up on the opposite side of the wall until about an hour later.

“When the wall went, it was like it happened in slow motion. We definitely didn’t expect this to happen – it’s a once in a lifetime thing. We’re all just upset and shocked.”

Kris estimates the incident caused around £300,000 worth of damage in total. He said “Three cars have been damaged – one of them is a hybrid and they’ve written it off because the battery is underneath the car and it’s been sat under water.

“Properties have been damaged – garages have collapsed and started to crack, people’s driveways have come up. Apparently about 20 houses have been affected by it.”

He added: “All in all we think there’s probably between £250,000 and £300,000 of damage. I’m not claiming on my insurance because it’s not worth it to me but everyone else has got thousands and thousands of pounds worth of damage. They’ve been told to go through their insurance companies.”

Kris went on to level criticism at Yorkshire Water, accusing the company of responding too slowly to the crisis. He claimed: “They were definitely too slow to respond – it definitely could have been prevented if they’d attended earlier.

“The serious thing is the delay in actually turning the water off. Yorkshire Water were outside on the front of the houses for about an hour before they got the go ahead to turn the water off.

“They were saying they weren’t sure whether it was Yorkshire Water’s pipes or private. Surely in an emergency like that they should just shut it off, but the fact that they’ve had to go through red tape to get to that point is ridiculous. Yorkshire Water haven’t spoken to the woman whose wall fell down, we’ve had no direct communication at all.”

In an official statement, a Yorkshire Water spokesperson said: “We experienced a burst on our clean water network at Wakefield Road, Barnsley on Saturday, which caused some flooding to nearby properties and gardens.

“Our team attended the burst as quickly as possible and were able to locate the damaged main and complete a repair. Our customer response team made two separate bottled water drop offs at 19 properties that lost supply, beginning with customers on the priority services register.

“We also had two dedicated customer service representatives on site and our specialist cleaning contractor, Service Master, were also deployed to assist with the clean-up. We understand incidents of this nature are distressing for customers and apologise for the inconvenience caused.

“We will be working with the customers impacted to assist them in rectifying any damage caused. A case worker has been assigned as a direct contact for affected customers to assist them with any claims or ongoing issues related to the burst.”