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DUSTBOWL BRITAIN: QUEUES FOR BOTTLED WATER AS TAPS RUN DRY

- JACK CLOVER

PARCHED families queued in the baking sunshine for emergency drinking water yesterday as taps ran dry in hundreds of homes.

As drought grips parts of England, hundreds of residents were left with no running water after a fault took out a treatment plant.

Householders in Cranleigh, Dorking, and Horsham told how rations of two two-litre bottles were being handed out per person following the fault at Thames Water's Netley Mill Treatment Works in Surrey.

RESTRICTIONS

Supermarket shelves were emptied as residents panic-bought extra supplies, while Manor Farm in Wotton warned cows could "try to break out of fields" in search of water if the issue was not resolved quickly.

Former Chelsea and England footballer Graeme Le Saux also hit out at South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt for a "PR stunt" after he posed for a photo with Thames Water boss Sarah Bentley.

The footie ace, who lives in the area, tweeted: "There's no bottled water at pick-up points, they've run out."