Southampton residents 'shaken' after boiler blows up in flat

Residents living in a block of new build flats in Roundhill Close were woken up by the sound of fire alarms on Wednesday night.

A boiler in a groundfloor flat blew up, causing a huge water leak.  

As firefighters rushed to the building, dozens of people were evacuated.

UPDATE: Hot water back on after huge water leak at block of flats

The fire service originally said this was due to a boiler explosion, but the council has said a "fault within the Heat Interface Unit" is to blame.

Sarah Astridge, 49, was at home with her daughter Alana when she noticed a strange noise coming from her boiler at around 8.45pm.

She said: "I was in my flat and started hearing a hissing noise coming out of the boiler room and when I looked there was hot water and steam coming out of the pipes.

"I then went into my daughter's room and grabbed her and we got out because I didn’t know if it was gas or what steam was coming out.

"I ran back to grab my cat and I ended up falling over and hurting my knee because it was dark.

"At this point, the walking watch was alerted to the incident and the fire bell rang."

READ MORE: Boiler explodes causing huge water leak in flat - as it happened

Neighbour Stacey Corbin came to assist Sarah to evacuate the building.

The 31-year-old said: "I came down when I heard the fire alarm and heard the daughter shout 'it’s in our flat'.

"I came in to have a look and I could hear hissing when I came into the flat.

"When I opened the boiler room door the steam heat just hit me in the face."

Residents waiting outside after boiler exploded (Image: Stacey Corbin, 31)

Residents gathered outside the block and were left waiting in the rain as firefighters began to clear water out.

Crews isolated water and electricity from the building and handed over the incident to Southampton City Council.

It is not the first time residents raised concerns over the flats' safety.

Last month, the council confirmed it launched an investigation into "ongoing" fire safety issues.

This was sparked after a full evacuation of the building on September 24 due to a system fault, with some residents saying individual alarms did not go off.

READ MORE: Major fire safety work carried out at block of flats

A spokesperson for the council said: "We can confirm that the nature of the issue was a water leak on a main supply connection to an individual property and members of our Property and our Housing Operations team are working to resolve the issue."

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