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INUVIK - A broken natural gas service line led RCMP to block downtown streets earlier this week.

Berger Street, Kingmingya Road and Mackenzie Road were blocked off for about a half-hour on Monday afternoon while repair teams worked to fix a broken underground gas line.

Crews from the power corporation and Inuvik Gas gather around the site of a gas leak on Monday afternoon. Officials said a service line was punctured during a routine power pole replacement. - Dez Loreen/NNSL photo

The leak was called in to Inuvik Gas at 3:39 p.m.

Inuvik Gas operating supervisor Garry Dalhseid said the leak was sprung when a drill boring a hole for a new power pole punctured a line. The line was shut off and plugged at 4:05 p.m. Two customers lost service over night, he said.

The supervisor said repairs were scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

"The line has been capped off and a fusion cap has been installed," he said. "We plan to dig it up on Tuesday and fuse a new pipe in the same day."

Deputy fire chief Julie Miller and Const. Ben Parry of Inuvik RCMP helped keep residents away from the area where repairs took place on Monday.

Miller said the fire department was called by the RCMP to assist in controlling the situation.

"We were called in to help with crowd and traffic control," said Miller.

Miller added the leak happened right after the high school was let out for the day, which meant there were more people in the area than normal.

"We had people coming from all directions," she said.

There were 14 firefighters on site. Three RCMP officers were on site.

Parry said the hole in the ground was making a loud piercing sound like air escaping rapidly.

"It sounded like air coming from a compressor," he said.

Parry said it took some time for people to learn why there was a road block, but "once we explained why they couldn't go down the street and why it was blocked off, they were co-operative," he said.

Miller added she was happy with the Inuvik gas team's speedy response time.

Roads were re-opened once the workers on site stopped the leak and the air had cleared.