Lebanon water shortage will threaten lives-U.N.

BEIRUT, July 28 (Reuters) - Lack of clean water will soon threaten lives in south Lebanon, where Israel's bombardment of roads and bridges has also cut off water supplies, a senior U.N. emergency relief official said.

A shortage of water sanitation equipment, the destruction of roads and the heavy fighting in the south means the United Nations has so far only managed to transport kits to provide 1,000 families with fresh water.

"Sanitation is a big issue. Without proper sanitation children will get diarrhoea, they will get sick and they will die," said Daniel Toole, director of emergency programmes at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Lebanon says up to 600 people may have been killed in Israel's 17-day-old war against Hizbollah. More than 700,000 have been displaced, and an unknown number remain in isolated villages close to the southern border with Israel.

So far the casualties have been a direct result of the bombardment. But disease is a growing danger, Toole said.

"If we cannot get in with means to store water and to transport clean water we will have disease. We will have very serious problems very soon."

Israel has targeted roads and bridges across southern Lebanon during the war, triggered by the capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 by Hizbollah guerrillas.

"But roads have the water lines underneath them, they have the electrical lines underneath them, so (the bombing has) disrupted all of the essential services," Toole said.

DROP IN THE SEA

His comments echoed a warning from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which described the health, water and nutrition problems in the southern villages as alarming.

"The material we are getting in is only a little bit bigger than a drop in the sea," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said. "It helps but there is much more needed."

The organisation said the situation was particularly alarming at one border village, Rmaish.

"People who had fled the village told ICRC delegates that people were drinking foul water from a pool used to collect water for irrigation," an ICRC statement said.

No one knows how many remain in the villages -- Hassan said some people had not left their houses for two weeks, so the villagers themselves could not say if their own neighbours had stayed or fled.

Despite the launch of U.N. convoys to the southern city of Tyre this week, Toole said access to the worst-hit areas was far too limited to provide necessary assistance.

"At a minimum we need a couple of days of tranquillity when we can get in and find out what is the situation and provide assistance," he said.

"That depends on (aid) corridors, that depends on agreements," Toole added. "I don't expect we will have a ceasefire immediately but that is the long-term goal, we must have that. We cannot continue to destroy this country."

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