Before the start of the war March 20, Umm Qasr received water from Basra to the north, which has been besieged for a week by coalition troops. On Monday, drinking water started coming through a pipe from across the border in Kuwait.

"The water is there but it's poorly distributed," Mohammed Maizar al-Ansari, director of Umm Qasr's hospital, told AFP.

Some 2.7 million liters (610,000 gallons) of water, in theory enough to meet immediate needs, are supposed to reach Umm Qasr each day through tankers supervised by British soldiers.

The trucks head to different districts across Umm Qasr, but they are often forcibly stopped by residents who want their water first.

"It's the strongest who gets the last word," said Ansari, who suspected that "some of the drivers are trying to resell water which they are supposed to be distributing for free."

He said the hospital went without water Tuesday, as it had already used all the 1,000 liters (227 gallons) it received Monday.

Ansari said he informed the British military command about the problem but he has not yet heard a response.

A British officer played down the problems, saying that the first day saw some glitches.

On the first day only half a million liters (114,000 gallons) went through the 2.5-kilometer (1.5-mile) pipeline from Kuwait, said Paul Stanley, who is in charge of civilian protection services for the British army.

"More than two million liters (454,000 gallons) should have arrived in Umm Qasr, but we had some technical problems," he told AFP.

For Ansari, the hospital director, the solution is to avoid tankers altogether.

"The water coming from Kuwait could be put into the city reservoir and distributed by Umm Qasr's normal network," he said.

The water would therefore be rationed, and the supply could be restricted to only a couple of hours a day. he said.

Umm Qasr, where in Ansari's estimate some 10,000 displaced Iraqis are living, is at least better off than some other towns in southern Iraq.

North of here, on the road connecting Al-Zubair and Basra, Iraqis have been heading to a pond created by spills from a pipe supplying water to a petrochemical plant.

"We're using this for our homes because we don't have water," said one young woman from Al-Zubair. "Only one tanker distributed water Monday, but that wasn't enough."

Aid agencies have warned of the dangers of life-threatening diseases if safe drinking water supplies are not restored.

SPACE.WIRE