Water outage at UK's Gatwick airport leaves toilets out of order and restaurants closed

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LONDON (AP) — A power outage at a water treatment plant in southeast England left toilets out of order and forced the closure of restaurants at Gatwick Airport on Sunday.

The airport, south of London, said on X that water pressure was beginning to return to normal in the evening, about eight hours after it apologized for the disruption to passengers at both terminals.

SES Water said its Bough Beech Water Treatment Works was running again but that it would take several hours to treat water, restore pressure and return operations to normal after the outage caused a temporary water loss to customers in Kent and Sussex counties.

The airport said it provided bottled water, though some passengers disputed that.

Passenger Paul Lee said he had not heard a word about the shut-off or seen water bottles being distributed.

“For people who need to go to the toilet, this isn’t good,” he told the BBC. “I’m taking off soon, so that’s fine, but for passengers in a few hours, this will be bad.”

Michael Dugher, a former member of Parliament, said on social media that with bars and restaurants closed, passengers were sitting on the floor because of a seating shortage.