HUNDREDS of homes and businesses were without water after a mains burst today.

Trains services were also delayed after they were forced to slow down while engineers battled to repair a fractured 18-inch trunk water main.

The incident happened on the busy Glasgow Road in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, shortly before lunchtime near the junction with Main Street.

The area had to be cordoned off and traffic was diverted to allow engineers to work on the problem.

Scottish Water said hundreds of premises in Rutherglen and neighbouring Gorbals had suffered serious interruptions to water supplies.

The utility giant also said the burst had resulted in some flooding on part of the railway line at the Rutherglen West junction and stressed that officials were working with Network Rail to minimise any disruption to services.

A spokeswoman for Scottish Water said: "We apologise for the inconvenience this burst has caused. We have engineers on site and are in the process of isolating the burst at the moment."

She admitted: "We have received calls from more than 700 customers and are doing everything possible to deal with this emergency as quickly as possible. Special teams are being mobilised to limit the disruption."

The spokeswoman added: "This is a major burst. We will investigate the cause later but the priority is to restore supplies as soon as possible."

Network Rail said the burst had caused "minimal" disruption to services.

For a short time trains were forced to travel at a maximum speed of 20mph. Services between Rutherglen and Whifflet, Coatbridge were the worst hit.