Floods forced thousands of residents to flee communities near the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine after the destruction of the Russian-controlled Kakhovka Dam released a flood of water from an upstream reservoir.
An estimated 16,000 people have been affected on the Ukrainian-controlled west side of the river, while 25,000 people living under Russian control on the east bank are at risk, according to Ukrainian officials.
The disaster increased pressure on a frontline zone already deeply scarred by the full-scale invasion of Russia. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called it a “monumental humanitarian, economic and environmental catastrophe” and “another example of the terrible cost of war to the people”.
Rescue workers fight in the middle of the war.
Ukrainian rescue workers were trying to rescue people from the floods downstream of the dam in the Kherson region, although Russian forces have launched around 70 attacks on the city since the dam ruptured, regional military administration chief Oleksandr Prokudin said on Wednesday. The city has been under constant fire since Ukraine pushed Russian troops back across the Dnipro River last year.
On the east side of the river, which is under Russian control, four villages — Korsunka, Krynky, Kozachi Laheri and Dnipryany — have been flooded, Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka Vladimir Leontiev told the Russian newspaper Izvestia. He said 17 of the approximately 900 people rescued had been picked up from the roofs of their homes.
In telephone interviews organized by a group distributing humanitarian aid in the village of Antonivka, residents described watching the rising water trickle from house to house. They said they kept their distance from the river bank, where Russian snipers had fired on local residents on the opposite side in the past.
Mykolayiv, a Black Sea port city already under pressure as a hub for people fleeing the fighting, and other nearby cities are now providing shelter for the new evacuees.
An increasing number of casualties and damages.
Water levels in the city of Kherson are expected to rise another meter or so before falling, Mr Prokudin said. More than 1,800 homes were flooded in Ukraine-controlled areas and more than 1,400 people were evacuated, he said.
At least seven people have been reported missing, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing Mr Leontiev, the Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka.
Ukraine’s agriculture minister said that 94 percent of agricultural irrigation systems in the Kherson region, 74 percent in the Zaporizhia region and 30 percent in the Dnipropetrovsk region would remain without a water source.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that “hundreds of thousands of people do not have normal access to drinking water”.
Ukraine says the hydroelectric power plant next to the destroyed dam cannot be restored, but that is unlikely to hit the country seriously as the power plant, which has been under Russian occupation since March last year, has not been connected to the grid since October.
Ukrainian officials and the United Nations nuclear regulatory agency also said the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, located on the reservoir above the dam, is not at risk of a meltdown. A large pond at the power plant contains enough water to cool the reactors “for a few months,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.
Trade debt between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine blamed Russia for the breach, saying there was an explosion in an engine room, with Mr Zelenskyy calling “Russian terrorists”. Russia claimed that Ukrainian forces carried out “sabotage”.
Engineering and munitions experts said a deliberate internal explosion was the most likely cause of the destruction, although structural failure or an attack from outside the dam were possible but less plausible. In the middle of a war zone, there is little prospect of an independent investigation.
The dam, which lies on the front line between Ukraine and Russia, is about 270 kilometers southwest of villages in the Donetsk region, where intensified Ukrainian attacks in recent days have been interpreted by American officials as a possible signal for a broader counteroffensive to begin. According to military experts, the flooding could divert attention and resources from both sides from this counteroffensive.