My Octavia Combi TDI had a catastrophic water pump failure at only 33,000 miles. The pump bearing appears to have collapsed seizing the pump completely. This led to the cam belt being rapidly totalled as it ran past the stationary water pump pully, When it broke all of the usual damage was done to the valves etc. This pump was of the type fitted with a plastic impeller, which despite being the cause of problems that I have seen in other threads remained intact during this incident.

Does anybody else out there know of any other such failures?

How old was the car though??

That's not unheard of although its pretty rare.