I THANK readers for their warm-hearted response to WaterAid's appeal to provide safe water in developing countries. Donations in response to the leaflet issued with water bills have flooded in and already total more than £500,000.

More than a billion people in developing countries, a fifth of humanity, still don't have access to safe water. Women have to walk many miles to fetch it and their children suffer and frequently die from diarrhoea and other water-related diseases.

WaterAid helps communities in Africa and Asia in practical and low-cost ways to build water supplies. I wish your readers could see, as I do, the huge improvement to the lives of families, from Bangladesh to Zambia, that we can bring.

It costs on average only £10 per person to enable a village to dig a well or improve a spring that guarantees a supply of safe life-giving water. But WaterAid can only assist thanks to the continued support of so many of your readers. Thank you.

JON LANE, Director, WaterAid, Albert Embankment, London.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.