SUVA -- Lounging by the pool of one of Fiji's most expensive resort hotels last month, an American tourist cracked open a bottle of "Fiji" mineral water and knocked it back like a draught of ice-cold beer. "Thank God for water," he sighed, examining the label of a brand that has made its developer, Canadian entrepreneur David Gilmour, a millionaire.

On the same day, just 120 km away in the Raiwaqa area of the Fijian capital, Suva, a boy and his two little sisters stood at the roadside clutching buckets, patiently waiting for a truck to deliver water. "I was sent home from school because there was no water," he said.

More than 200,000 Fiji residents in some of the country's most populous suburbs reportedly went without water at the beginning of March -- some, like the young boy and his sisters, for up to four days. In parts of Suva, schools and businesses were closed and students and workers sent home as water engineers failed to restore the supply.