CHILDREN faced a walk through raw sewage to reach a Valleys primary school yesterday.

And some young pupils even hitched a lift in the back of a pickup truck to get to lessons at Aber-carn Primary School as sewage continued to gush from a drain - 19 hours after it was first reported to Welsh Water.

The drain burst on Monday afternoon, flooding the access lanes outside the school.

Caretaker Linda Wysom reported the problem just after 3pm and was told that it would be treated as a priority.

But Welsh Water yesterday admitted that the first workers sent out to tackle the problem were unable to find the school.

So children arriving for school yesterday morning had to walk through waste to reach their classrooms, while pupils living in the West End estate had to cross raw sewage over a foot deep - forcing teachers to ferry the children across the flooded lane in the back of a 4X4 truck.

Chairwoman of governors Liz Trott said: "This was first reported on Monday afternoon, but there was just no response.

"There are clear health and safety issues over having raw sewage flooding the outside of the school and it should have been addressed straight away."

Mrs Wysom said: "I expected them to come much quicker than they did. "They were told that the school might have to be closed but still did not respond."

Welsh Water workers arrived at 9.50am yesterday to start clearing the mess.

A spokeswoman said: "Dwr Cymru Welsh Water was informed of an incident of sewage flooding at a school in Abercarn at 3.04pm yesterday afternoon.

"Dwr Cymru Welsh Water sewerage contractors were dispatched to attend the site but were unable to locate the school. We telephoned the customer who had made the initial call but were unable to get an answer. "We received further contact this morning and were given full details for the incident which had occurred at Abercarn Junior and Infants School.

"A second crew was on site by 9.50am where they found a surcharging manhole and cleared a blockage in the sewerage system.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused." The clean-up was due to be completed yesterday afternoon when a tanker attended the site to remove the sewage.