Stunned MPs were forced to take cover after the roof of an office building in Parliament cracked open - as a "flood of water" gushed out into a huge pool on the floor.
It left a gaping hole just bigger than a cricket ball in the roof of Portcullis House (PCH), with glass fragments visible on the floor beneath the hole. Parliamentary staff cleared the area while the damage was inspected, with hundreds of staff, MPs and journalists asked to move along.
Mervyn Thomas, a researcher for the Bishop of Guildford, who had been sat in PCH when the glass pane fell in, said there had been a big bang followed by a flood of water through the roof. He said: "I was just sitting here and I just suddenly heard this huge bang and then a flood of water."
