Patients and staff from a hospital in Clarendon Street, East Melbourne called Epworth Freemasons Hospital had to be relocated after it was flooded with water on the afternoon of Dec. 21. The water had come in because a pipe had burst in the third floor of the facility, which resulted in the water flooding the first and second floors of the hospital as well as its basement. The hospital came to a decision on the evening of the day of the incident that the hospital would be evacuated, reported The Age.

The spokeswoman for the hospital, Colleen Coghlan, said that 90 patients had been moved to other Epworth hospitals. She said that both, the patients as well as the staff, were all safe and that they were being evacuated in a calm as well as in an orderly fashion. She added that four patients had already been relocated earlier on Dec. 21. The evacuation began at the facility at about 8pm on Dec. 21 and was expected to take about four hours for the process.

Central district commander of Metropolitan Fire Brigade, Shane Rhodes, said that the emergency services had been called for after 3 p.m. on Dec. 21. He also said that before the incident was brought under control, thousands of litres of water from the burst pipe had flooded the hospital.

10 Metropolitan Fire Brigade vehicles had been called to the hospitals and the firefighters redirected the flow of water until City West Water had shut down the main supply of water for the area. Mr. Rhodes said that the water had flooded downwards which included the flow through light fittings. He added that the third floor had sustained lots of damage while the other two floors suffered substantial damage.

According to Coghlan, the lifts at the hospital were not operational yet. She said that as a precautionary measure, the patients had been transferred to other Epworth hospitals namely the Richmond and Campberwell hospitals. Coghlan explained that the surgeries for Dec. 22 had been cancelled at the Clarendon Street hospital which was flooded but most of it had been rescheduled at other Epworth hospitals for the same day.

The Epworth media and communications team posted a message on Twitter thanking the State Emergency Services, Victoria police and others who helped them during the time of incident. Here is a look at the message that it posted:

Thank you SES volunteers, Victoria Police, Ambos, EF staff and above all our patients transferring out sans complaint pic.twitter.com/LUKmZhJcbH

— Epworth HealthCare (@epworthnews) December 21, 2014