Nearly 14,000 households in northern Limburg have been warned not to drink water straight from the tap until Thursday following the discovery of E. coli bacteria.

Water supplier Waterleiding Maatschappij Limburg (WML) told householders to boil tap water for at least three minutes before using it for drinking, brushing teeth or preparing food. The advice also applies to water for pets and cattle.

The advice was issued at the weekend to people living in parts of Venray, Bergen and Horst aan de Maas and has since been extended to Thursday. The initial announcement sparked a run on bottled water at supermarkets across the area.

WML said it had traced the outbreak to a container at a pumping station in Grubbenvorst where drinking water is stored after being purified.

The company has a list of areas on its website where the advice to boil drinking water applies.

“This location has been isolated and is no longer in the drinking water system,” a spokesman told local news network L1. “We are investigating how the bacteria came to be there.”

Some 70,000 households in Apeldoorn have been advised to boil drinking water after E. coli was found in the water supply on October 4, in a separate incident. Supplier Vitens has refilled its reservoirs and is awaiting the results of tests to see if the water is clean again.