From midnight Tuesday, under a municipal plan that divides the city of nearly four million into two, each section will alternately face 48-hour-long water cuts.

Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek said in a television interview that the rationing would last for five months at the most, but could be called off earlier in the event of heavy autumn rainfall.

The rationing came after a municipal ban in May on hosing down cars, gardens and terraces failed to save enough water, with officials blaming the poor result on public apathy.

Gokcek said the city, which has seen temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), well above seasonal averages, has only 170 million cubic metres (5.95 billion cubic feet) of water left in its dams and reservoirs -- just 5.0 percent of total capacity.

The rationing has led to a rush on large plastic water containers for homes and flats and water cisterns for buildings, media reports said.

The city has started building a 375-kilometre (233-mile) pipeline to bring water from Kizilirmak, the country's longest river, to the east of the city.

Gokcek said 210 kilometres (131 miles) of the conduit, which will provide Ankara with 750,000 cubic metres (26.25 million cubic feet) of water daily when operational, was now complete.

Ankara traditionally has cold winters with lots of snowfall, followed by hot and dry summers, but this year the city has had minimal snow and almost no rain during the spring.

The drought has affected many other parts of the country, including its two other major cities, Istanbul and Izmir, on the Aegean coast.