Gallons of water turned an east Oxford road into a lake after workers fixing a worn road surface hit a pipe.

The accident happened at about 5pm today in St Clement's - just hours after road improvement works started.

Thames Water cut off the pipe within minutes of the damage - but water continued to gush out, covering several metres outside the Black Horse pub.

Mike Bain, who was in the pub, said: "It just went up. It hit the roof on the other side of the road. Fortunately there was nobody walking over the footpath at the time and they put the shovel of the digger over it fairly quickly."

The pub was still without water at 7pm last night although no other properties were immediately affected.

A spokesman for Thames Water said hundreds of homes could be affected later in the evening while they fixed the damage, but they could not say how long that would take.

Bar manager Johnny Mason said the pub would remain open - but if the problem continued for much longer they would have to close.

He said: "We've got nothing, we can't clean the glasses or flush the toilets."