"It's hard to believe that a normal family could ever live like this," said Tarrantino as she dragged one of her kids off a bicycle and indoors for a scrubbing. "We have to work, bring up our kids and now we have to be specialists in water management."

From Tuscany to the tip of Sicily, Italy is suffering its worst drought in decades. It has wiped out crops, killed livestock and changed the lives of thousands.

Rainfall on Sicily is at its lowest level in more than 70 years and reservoirs could run dry if it doesn't rain by October. Sardinia, Puglia and Basilicata face similar fates.

Italians see much more than a natural disaster.

They blame the current crisis on years of low investment and political negligence that have left the country with a notoriously leaky distribution network in which 40 percent of the water is lost before it even reaches the user.

WHAT DROUGHT?

As a result, Italy has the highest water consumption per capita in Europe and the third highest in the world.

An independent water watchdog concluded in a parliamentary report this week that investment in water resources has shrunk 70 percent over the last 14 years and said a third of Italians still don't have constant access to drinking water.

In sun-baked Sicily, more than 50 percent of water is lost due to leaks and outright theft. Still, Salvatore D'Urso, one of the top commissioners of the Sicilian Aqueduct Company (EAS), says governments have done everything they could.

"We have carried out huge public works in the area of water in the 1980s and 1990s," he said. "We still have to bridge a big management gap by stopping theft and leaks, but the infrastructure is there. The problem is the rain."

The manager of the Palermo's traditional Grand Hotel et Des Palmes agreed: "What drought? Whenever our water storage tanks run low, we call city hall and they are replenished."

But most Sicilians beg to differ. In Palermo, housewives have taken to the street, staging noisy demonstrations while farmers block roads with tractors to demand action be taken.

And Palermo is just the tip of the iceberg. Much of the countryside and some cities have yet to be connected to aqueducts. Residents in the southern city of Agrigento, one of the hardest hit, go up to 20 days at a time without water.

"Families have set up huge water containers that hold thousands of litres, but often even that isn't enough," said Leonardo Piscitelli, head of Agrigento's farmers' association.

"Sometimes we have to take baths in the same water used to wash dishes," he said.

In Caltanissetta and Palma di Montechiaro the situation is no better.

SHRIVELLED GRAPES

"Palermo is paradise compared to the Sicilian countryside. Even if you only have it every other day at least there is water," said Nino, a taxi driver from the interior of Sicily.

"In Palma Di Montechiaro you only get water once every 20 days. People run out of water, they steal it, they sell it, their lives centre around water and the lack of it."

Without a doubt, farmers across Sicily and southern Italy are the main victims of the shortages.

Stunted wheat and shrivelled grapes have been left to rot in the dusty fields and animals are dying. The pale blue lakes outside Palermo which provide much of the Mediterranean island's water have shrunk to one fifth their normal size.

Agricultural losses in Italy could reach 3.5 billion euros ($3.5 billion). In Sicily alone, farmers say they need 1.5 billion euros in aid and are even more worried about the future.