Bursting of the Fleet Ditch and destruction of part of the Metropolitan Railway: scene of the accident, [London], 1862. Owing to falls in the Fleet sewer the waters had accumulated to a great extent against the wall of the embankment...a warning was given by the cracking and heaving mass, and the workmen had time to escape before the embankment fell in...the massive brick wall...rose bodily from its foundations as the water forced its way beneath, and, slowly breaking up into fragments, fell over with the scaffolding, roadway, lamps, pavement, and "plant" of every description into the road beneath...the whole of the line was flooded up to Frederick-street, workmen and horses being driven out before the rapidly-rising water...on the opposite side of the railway, the water gradually creeping up its dark brown walls, stood the great burial vault containing the bodies from the old Clerkenwell pauper burial-ground...One end of this...had been already partially burst open by the shock, and at every moment threatened altogether to fall and scatter its ghastly contents upon the stream...a gang of three hundred navvies were set to work to tap the Fleet sewer above the site of the accident, and draw the water off through a temporary open channel. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.