They cannot even flush their toilets: life in east London blocks where taps often run dry

Devons Road estate residents describe months-long ordeal of not being able to wash, clean or cook for much of the day

• Hundreds in London flats left without regular running water since last year

Christmas Day in east London. Beatrice Asante empties a bag of potatoes into her kitchen sink and turns on the tap. Nothing. She turns it off and on again. Still nothing. What now?

Asante rushes out to the only shop that is open, the local Nisa convenience store. She buys several big plastic bottles of water. Enough, she thinks, to make dinner and to last until the taps start running again.