Londoners Left Dry After Power Cut at Thames Water Plant

Much of West London had no water service Wednesday morning after power was cut at a treatment plant operated by Thames Water Ltd.

(Bloomberg) — Much of West London had no water service Wednesday morning after power was cut at a treatment plant operated by Thames Water Ltd.

Customers in as many as 50 postcodes were affected by the outage, which lasted about two hours and forced some schools and businesses to close because they had little or no water pressure.

The incident piles on the woes for Britain’s biggest water company, which has been thrown into crisis this year over high debt levels, the abrupt resignation of Sarah Bentley as chief executive and the assessment of £82 million in penalties by the regulator Ofwat because of poor performance.

A spokeswoman for Thames Water apologized to customers and said the utility was identifying people registered as having special requirements so it could offer them help.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said his office was asking Thames Water to explain what happened and what it was doing to prevent it from happening again.

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