THE smell from gallons of leaking raw sewage seeped through tightly closed windows and forced locals and motorists to wipe tears from their eyes.

A massive clean-up operation swung into action yesterday when a damaged waste water main spewed sludge containing sewage on to derelict land near the 24-hour Tesco store in Glasgow's Dalmarnock Road.

The effluence seeped out undetected for around four hours on Tuesday night before the alarm was raised.

By the time engineers arrived on the scene it had seeped on to an access road to the Tesco car park, next to the Daldowie Sludge Treatment Centre.

At the height of the incident the two-lane access road was partially closed until clean-up operations were carried out by Scottish Water workmen.

Passing motorists complained of an obnoxious stench as they drove past the works in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire.

Supermarket bosses also decided to close the store for several hours until the all-clear was given.

A spokesman for Scottish Water, said:"Our response teams were quickly on site and isolated the problem on the main which feeds into the Daldowie Sludge Treatment Centre.

"A number of specialist clean up vehicles, road sweepers and tankers were immediately dispatched to the site and worked through the night to clean the car park access road.

"Our team also carried out a clean up of the car park.

"During this process, specialist traffic management contractors closed one filter lane of the road, with only minimal impact to traffic.

"The management of the Tesco store took a decision to close for several hours during the quiet overnight period to prevent further tracking of sludge into the car park.

"One industrial unit at the site was also slightly affected but we worked closely with the owner and a full clean up was carried out and completed by early on Wednesday morning.

"At the same time, other Scottish Water specialists isolated the sludge main and arranged for pumps to remove the residual content to prevent further leakage and to allow repair work to be carried out.

"Deodorising equipment was also set up around the leak site to minimise any odour issues and will remain in place while the remainder of the leaked material is cleaned up by specialist contractors.

"We apologise to affected customers for this unforeseen problem, thank them for their patience and assistance and reassure them this was dealt with as a priority."

A Tesco spokesman said: "We closed the store in the early hours of the morning due to a burst pipe which affected an access road to the store.

"The problem was quickly resolved and the store is now open as usual."

The incident comes just nine months after Scottish Water spent £1.5million to tackle a persistent pong which had plagued the East End for years.

The money was used to clean up a waste water treatment site in Dalmarnock, close to the Emirates Arena and Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, which will both feature in next year's Commonwealth Games.

gordon.thomson@ eveningtimes.co.uk