RICHMOND (BCN)--East Bay Municipal Utility District crews are working to repair a  6-inch water main in Richmond that burst early Tuesday morning, a utility  spokesman said.

     

The break near the intersection of Columbia Avenue and Santa Clara  Street was reported at about 4:10 a.m., spokesman Charles Hardy said.

     

EBMUD crews responded and shut off the water flow about 90 minutes  later, he said.

     

As of 8:45 a.m., a crew was working to fix the main, and 20  customers were without service. Hardy said the repairs should be completed by  2 p.m.

     

No property damage was reported.

     

A cause for the rupture had not been identified, but Hardy said  water main breaks are not unusual in the system, which has 4,200 miles of  pipe with an average pipe age of 80 years.

     

"Typically, when you put a pipe in the ground, you hope it will  last 50 years, but there are pipes in the ground that last 100 years," Hardy  said.

 

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