A GIANT “water volcano” shot 40 feet into the air when a mains burst in a busy town centre road.

Milton Road was shut to traffic on Monday evening and several households lost their water supply as water and rubble erupted into the sky – higher than the four storey buildings there.

Hundreds of people stood watching the scene and taking pictures on their mobile phones, while children ran and cycled through the spray.

The water, which caused a flood at the junction with Faringdon Road, lifted part of the road surface and gathered outside the front doors of nearby ground floor flats.

Thames Water arrived at 6.55pm and stopped the leak at midnight, and police re-opened one lane of the road at just after midnight on Tuesday. The other lane was expected to reopen in the next couple of days.

Milton Road resident Vince Masters 26 said: “It’s literally spilling out gallons and gallons of water – it looks like a water volcano.

“Police have shut the road off at the top and there’s lots of residents standing around watching. It has lifted all the concrete on the road.”

Shirelle Moore, who lives in a nearby flat, said she heard the mains burst. She said: “I was on the sofa watching TV and I heard a big bang.

“I looked out of the window and there was water everywhere. It was just like a waterfall.

“There were kids out there in the waterfall and police had to tell them to move away. People were taking pictures standing by the waterfall and they had to get moved along.”

Shirelle said that no homes were flooded but water did flood the end of the road.

She said “They were quite lucky. It did go down the steps and everyone was complaining. We had no water. It has only come on this morning and they did say up to three weeks.

“We were all going over to the Milton Road swimming baths and asking if we could use their showers and toilets, and they said yes.”

Michelle Sanders, a client co-ordinator at mediation service Mediation Plus, which is next to the leak area, said: “There were about 10 kids here and there were people sitting on the wall watching it, waiting to see what happened next.

“And there were two community police officers who realised that the kids were in danger from the rocks so they stopped them going anywhere near it.”

Simon Evans, a spokesman for Thames Water, said: “It was reported to us around 5.30pm. It was a five inch wide burst main. The repair was completed by just after midnight so the water would have been turned off shortly after the first guy arrived in order for the repair to be undertaken.

“As far as what caused it, it’s too early to say at the moment, but occasionally pipes burst. We appologise to anyone who had their supplies impacted or any road users inconvenienced by the work we did.”