- Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the dam breach
- Local residents wade through the flood water to evacuate
- Zaporizhia nuclear power plant has enough water for cooling – UN
KHERSON, Ukraine, June 7 (Portal) – Floods were expected to peak in southern Ukraine on Wednesday. Tens of thousands of civilians fled in danger from the destruction of a huge dam, which both sides described as an act of war sabotage.
Local residents waded through flooded streets with children on their shoulders, dogs in their arms and belongings in plastic bags, while rescuers in inflatable boats searched areas where the water was above head height. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of deliberately destroying the Nova Kakhovka Dam out of desperation at a key turning point in the war.
“Everything is submerged in the water, all the furniture, the fridge, food, all the flowers, everything is floating. I don’t know what to do,” said Oksana, 53, in the city of Kherson downstream of the dam.
According to Ukraine, 42,000 people are at direct risk of flooding and hundreds of thousands will be without access to drinking water.
The roof of a house could be seen moving in the raging Dnipro River.
“If the water rises another meter, we will lose our house,” said Oleksandr Reva from a village on the shore, who wanted to move his family’s belongings to the abandoned house of a neighbor upstairs.
Local residents blamed the disaster on Russian troops, who controlled the dam from their positions on the opposite bank.
“They hate us,” Reva said. “They want to destroy a Ukrainian nation and Ukraine itself. And they don’t care by what means, because nothing is sacred to them.”
Russia declared a state of emergency in the parts of Kherson province it controls, where many towns and villages lie in the lowlands below the dam. Residents there told Portal by phone that Russian troops, patrolling the streets in waders, were threatening civilians who approached.
A riverside zoo on the Russian side was flooded, killing all the animals inside, staff said.
The consequences of the catastrophe will be felt in southern Ukraine for decades to come. The huge reservoir behind the dam was one of Ukraine’s most important geographic features, and its waters irrigated vast agricultural tracts in one of the world’s largest grain exporting countries, including Crimea, which was seized by Russia in 2014.
The flooding “will have serious and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine on both sides of the frontline as they lose homes, food, clean water and livelihoods,” UN Secretary General Martin Griffiths told the Security Council. “The extent of the disaster will only become fully apparent in the next few days.”
[1/12] Rescuers evacuate local residents from a flooded area after the Novaya-Kakhovka Dam was breached during the Russian attack on Ukraine in Kherson, Ukraine June 7, 2023. Portal/Vladyslav Musiienko
Attacks on dams during war are expressly forbidden in the Geneva Conventions. Neither side has presented public evidence that would establish who was to blame.
“The whole world will learn about this Russian war crime,” said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his nightly address, calling it “an environmental bomb of mass destruction.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday Ukraine sabotaged the dam to distract from a new counteroffensive that he says has “stalled”.
Washington said it was still gathering evidence as to who was to blame, but Ukraine had no reason to wreak such havoc on itself.
“Why would Ukraine do this to its own territory and people, flood its country, force tens of thousands of people to leave their homes — it doesn’t make sense,” Deputy US Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood told reporters.
Shelling across the river
While the evacuation was still underway, Russia shelled the Ukrainian-held territory across the river. The artillery bang sent people trying to flee into cover in Kherson. Portal reporters heard four artillery shells Tuesday night near a residential area where civilians were being evacuated. The governor said one person was killed.
Russia said a Ukrainian drone attacked a town on the opposite bank during evacuations there, accusing the Ukrainian side of continuing to shell out despite the floods.
Bisecting Ukraine, the vast Dnipro River forms the southern front line in a war that reached a turning point this week with the apparent start of a long-awaited Ukrainian counterattack using Western tanks.
Ukraine has been largely silent on the counterattack, aside from hinting that troops were advancing around the eastern town of Bakhmut, which was finally captured by Russia this month after nearly a year of Europe’s deadliest ground fighting since World War II. Russia says it has thwarted major Ukrainian attacks in heavy fighting at the front since Sunday.
The drainage tank supplies water that cools Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhia, upstream. The UN nuclear regulator said the power plant should have enough water from a separate pond to cool its reactors “for a few months”.
Reporting by Portal offices. Author: Peter Graff; Edited by Philippa Fletcher
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.