A water main break near Times Square flooded streets and sent water cascading into the subway system early Tuesday morning, shutting down several Midtown intersections and temporarily suspending some subway service in the area.

As crews work to excavate and repair the broken water system, roads remain closed on Seventh Avenue, between West 42nd and West 39th streets, and on West 40th Street between Eighth and Sixth avenues. Officials said they expect them to remain closed throughout the day.

The flooding forced the MTA to partially suspend subway service on the 1 and 3 train lines and reroute 2 trains. Just before 11 a.m., the agency said all three lines were up and running, though with extensive delays.

At a news conference around 7 a.m., Rohit Aggarwala, the commissioner of the city's Department of Environmental Protection, said a water main located 10 to 15 feet below street level burst at 3 a.m. on Seventh Avenue.

Aggarwala said crews arrived at the scene within 30 minutes, and were able to shut down all of the water feeding into the section at West 40th Street and Seventh Avenue within the next hour.  

Video showed water gushing down stairwells and into the Times Square subway station.

The water main that broke was constructed in 1896, and located above the subway system, Aggarwala said. It wasn't immediately clear why the 20-inch pipe burst. 

Officials said they do not know how many buildings will lose water as crews continue repairs to the water main, but they believe it will be a relatively small number, as most of the buildings in the area have redundant water supply systems.

“The main impact, of course, has been on the subways, because the water main is above the subway station here,” Aggarwala said.

“Severe impacts on the 1, 2, and 3 lines, in large part because water has seeped through in here at Times Square, and actually moved to its lowest point, which turns out to be south,” NYC Transit President Richard Davey told reporters at the news conference in Midtown.

Davey said the transit system was, at time of the news conference, experiencing issues at the West 23rd Street and West 14th Street stations, where “water is actually above the rail.” 

Crews of workers walked the tunnels between West 42nd and West 14th streets to clear debris and inspect communication rooms, which were impacted by the water, Davey said.

In a second news conference shortly before noon, Davey said approximately 1.8 million gallons of water entered the subway system Tuesday morning due to the water main break, all of which has since been pumped out.

He added that he did not expect the delays on the 1, 2, and 3 lines to last into the evening commute.