The fat rock weighing 15 tonnes formed in a main sewer pipe beneath the Kingston area, southwest London.

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– The exhaust pipe was almost completely blocked by more than 15 tons of oil. If we don’t catch it in time, raw sewage could start coming out of manhole covers across Kingston, says Gordon Hailwood of Thames Water.

Big like a double-decker bus

The 15-ton glob of oil consisted of oil from leftover food mixed with wet tissue and was the same size (in volume) as one of London’s classic double-decker buses.

– It was so big, the sewer pipe was damaged and it took six weeks to repair it, said Gordon Hailwood.

The lump was discovered after residents in a wealthy neighborhood complained they couldn’t flush their toilets.

Fat deposits have been accumulating for about six months.

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The largest “fat mountain” of all time

– While we have removed large amounts of oil from central London before, we have never seen oil plumes of this size persistently clogging our waterways, says Gordon Hailwood.

A photo of the inside of a 70×48 cm drain pipe shows that only about five percent of the pipe is not clogged with fat lumps.

– Since we have the largest drainage pipe and this is the largest “fat rock” we have ever encountered, I estimate this is the largest rock in British history, says Gordon Hailwood.

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