Underground swa joint.

[timhoward]

Had they chopped a water pipe as well?

The poor guy (who I know well) had a terrible day. He started off with a mild leak on a stop cock. (red arrow)
There was a digger on site and he borrowed it. I still don't get why he dug where he did. I was on site anyway for something else.
I get a call from him "you'd better come down to number 2". At same time I started getting calls saying various things had no power.
By time I got there he'd dug a bit more and there was an impressive growing lake. He'd severed the power, and there was an unprotected 22mm copper water pipe he'd also spectacularly mangled up.
It took out an upstream single phase breaker, and the C63 three phase breaker two DB's up.

The scene a while later....the trench running towards the house is where he severed a copper water pipe - looking at where the gas cabinet is (blue arrow) I was initially worried he'd managed the triple crown and got all three services!

A year earlier, I'd found the two houses pictured shared a neutral on an EICR. 10 months earlier I'd dug a hole 10m upstream and connected a new cable to the one he severed, and ran a new supply to the far house. I wasn't delighted to be back there getting muddy so soon.

 

[Mikegh]

I've cut through enough live ones by mistake to know you're usually safe if the armour is connected

Was on a job where they dug a trench round the perimeter of a large building for a water main for the fire brigade points

No maps for cabling , they just cut through a load of them with the digger and I repaired each one with 2 resin joints