Humans can last for a week or more without food but die within days without water.
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Many live in the most basic of shacks - without water, electricity or sanitation.
The Arabian oryx prefers dry, near-desert conditions and can survive without water for long periods.
Over the past two days, the Shiite holy city has been without water and electricity, reports said.
In a recent report, it said 1, 700 schools were without water and another 15, 000 had no library.
Part of a Powys town left without water after a mains burst has had its supply restored.
We are a family in East Belfast and have been without water since approximately 8.30am this morning.
Supply for about 20, 000 customers is being rotated leaving homes without water for up to eight hours.
The Uber NYC office is currently closed and some of our team members are without water and power.
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Many Oregon communities will be left without water, power, heat and telephone service.
About 6, 000 homes in Manchester were left without water after a main burst and caused a road to collapse.
Lagan Valley Hospital was without water for "a number of hours" on Thursday.
At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 1.9 million households were without electricity.
In July, a trainload of Metro-North passengers was stranded for about an hour without water or air conditioning near Westport, Conn.
Elsewhere, there have been reports of water problems in Rhiw, Gwynedd, with customers without water or low pressure in the Llyn Peninsula (LL53).
An environmental health inspection is to be carried out at a Leeds apartment block where residents have been without water for six days.
"Hospitals are having to deal with ill children without the drugs they need and without water, " spokeswoman Kathryn Irwin told BBC News Online.
He visited the mother of a six-week-old baby at Feystown near Glenarm, who said she had been coping in recent days without water and electricity.
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The power cuts have also disrupted water supplies in some areas, with about 500 customers in south Antrim and parts of west Belfast without water.
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Cast your mind back to 1976 when Britain was in the grip of the worst drought of the century and thousands of people were left for hours without water every day.
Such a way of thinking contrasts with the usual view around the world, which argues that since humans cannot live without water, it should be a basic human right, available to all, preferably for nothing.
The very few that exist are simple structures, often without water or even electricity, built by villages that have no means or access to put in the equipment or provide the supplies for a proper clinic.
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His group first looked to nature for inspiration, using studies of the biochemistry of organisms that survive without water: 500-year-old Chinese lotus seeds, the hardy resurrection plant of the Sonoran desert and the microscopic tardigrade creature.
And on Monday a burst in a parallel pipe flooded the road, close to the entrance of St Peter's Hospital, forcing traffic to take a detour for several hours and leaving householders in the area temporarily without water.
While the facility would only operate at full capacity for 12 hours a day, the technology is designed to work without water, which is often used in cooling systems for solar thermal plants and is a precious commodity in Arizona.
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