Buildings flooded in central Wellington after pipe bursts

A pipe has burst in central Wellington, causing significant flooding to a building and a nearby property.

Fire and Emergency said it received a call at 4.35am, notifying them of flooding on Willeston Street.

Three fire trucks remain at the scene on Wednesday, pumping water out of the building's basement.

Victoria Street has been cordoned off between Willeston and Hunter Streets, and one of the buildings has been evacuated.

However, one lane will be opened up to let traffic through at "lunch time".

Multiple storefronts were blocked off.

Fire and Emergency's senior station officer Steve Mackle said the burst pipe was a private water main into one of the affected buildings.

The flooding then spread to the neighbouring basements.

No one has been injured.

Mackle said two buildings were significantly affected.

Power supply in affected buildings was cut off.

Some shops are continuing to operate without power.

Mackle said once the water has been pumped out, engineers will need to check the foundations.

They will then need to check that the power connections and life safety systems are safe and working.

"It's a big basement with a lot of water, we will just have to wait and see at this stage."

One of the businesses continuing to operate without power was clothing story Annah Stretton.

Retail Assistant Samantha Solomon said it would hit them in the pocket.

"Definitely not a lot of customers in, people are just thinking that we are closed so definitely an impact there in terms of sales."

She said they were trying do manually process payments due to the lack of power.

"A lot of cards don't have online order ability, I can't take security codes if they don't have them so I can't do a lot of the payments.