London sewer blocked by ‘monster’ fatberg

A huge fatberg weighing more than 10 double-decker buses is blocking a sewer in East London.

The deposit, made up of wet wipes, nappies and hardened cooking fat, has clogged up a stretch of Victorian sewer under the busy Whitechapel Road.

Matt Rimmer, Thames Water’s head of waste networks, said: “This fatberg is a total monster and taking a lot of manpower and machinery to remove as it’s set hard. It’s basically like trying to break up concrete.”

Engineers began to break down the structure this week using highpowered jet hoses before pulling the waste up into tankers and sending it to a nearby disposal site.