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I’m obviously but an humble ethnomusicologist and digital strategist-practitioner rather than a civil engineer, but the footage of the HS1 Thames Tunnel on the news showing it flooding — that doesn’t to me look like heavy rain flooding it from one portal or the other, that looks like the actual infrastructure of the inside of the tunnel itself having been compromised.
in reply to Alexandra Lanes

@simon gray Or possibly a fire suppression system gone wrong, if you believe Thames Water. Anyway, not the Thames coming from outside the tunnel to inside it
in reply to Alexandra Lanes

@ajlanes Yes, I’d heard later that it was the fire suppression system. Still, a tunnel that floods, under a river — not great, is it? (Although they resumed services this morning, the affected tunnel was still closed, so still a bit more serious than a dripping pipe)
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simon gray
@goatsarah But apparently only through one of the two tunnels — the affected tunnel was still closed this morning at least
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simon gray
@ajlanes @goatsarah I guess the questions boil down to whether it was simply a burst pipe inside the confines of the tunnel (not great but not terrible), or if there’s a an actual crack in the tunnel (very terrible) — it *looked* like the latter from the footage, but it wasn’t clear so could have been the latter. But even one burst pipe in a tunnel raises the possibility of other pipes in the tunnel bursting at some point, depending on why it burst.
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simon gray
@goatsarah @ajlanes Oh, I’m not remotely bothered, or easily upset, if it helps. I’m just having a chat on the worldwide super global internets.
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simon gray
@goatsarah @ajlanes Nothing on the Banqiao Dam Failure, though, innit, if we’re talking human-made water structure problems