Global Courant
KHERSON, Ukraine –
Water from a collapsed dam continued to rise in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes in a major emergency operation that gave a dramatic new dimension to the war with Russia, now in its 16th month.
Amid the disaster relief, artillery shelling rang out as people rushed to get out of harm’s way and climbed onto military trucks or rafts.
A day after the dam collapsed, it remained unclear what caused it. Ukraine accused Russia of blowing up the dam wall, while Russia blamed Ukrainian shelling for the breach. Some experts said the collapse may have been accidental due to wartime damage and neglect, though others said this was unlikely and argued that Russia may have had tactical military reasons for destroying the dam.
The strength of the flood was expected to ease over the course of the day, officials said Wednesday, but water levels were expected to rise by another meter (about 3 feet) over the next 20 hours, affecting more downstream areas along the banks of the Dnieper would flood.
The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam and reservoir, one of the largest in the world and essential for supplying drinking water and irrigation to a vast area of southern Ukraine, is located in a part of the Kherson region that has been under construction for the past year. the Kremlin’s forces are occupied. The Dnieper River separates the warring factions there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday accused Moscow of “deliberate destruction” of the dam.
“Hundreds of thousands of people had no normal access to drinking water,” he said in a Telegram post.
Some local residents spent the night on rooftops. Others, rushing to flee the rising waters, were evacuated by buses and trains with whatever belongings they could carry.
“The intensity of floods is slightly decreasing,” Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson regional military administration, said in a video. “However, due to the significant destruction of the dam, the water will keep coming.”
He said more than 1,800 houses along the Dnieper have been flooded and nearly 1,500 people have been evacuated.
Residents sloshed through knee-deep waters into flooded homes as videos on social media showed scenes of rescuers pulling people to safety, and what appeared to be the triangular roof of an entire building uprooted and floating downstream. Aerial footage showed water filling the streets of the Russian-controlled town of Nova Kakhovska on the east side of the river.
Russia-appointed mayor of Nova Kakhovska Vladimir Leontyev said seven people were missing, but early signs suggested they could still be alive. Officials in Russian-controlled parts of the Kherson region said 900 Nova Kalhovka residents have been evacuated, including 17 rescued from the tops of flooded buildings.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, focused on who might be to blame, noting its earlier assessment that “the Russians have a greater and clearer interest in flooding the lower Dnieper, despite the damage to their own prepared defensive positions.”
Amid speculation that Ukraine may have secretly launched its long-awaited counter-offensive, the ISW said Russian forces may believe breaching the dam could cover a possible retreat and slow Ukraine’s advance.
Experts noted that the dam, about 70 kilometers (44 mi) east of the city of Kherson, was believed to be in disrepair and vulnerable to collapse because the water was already overflowing when the wall gave way. It had not produced any power since November, officials said.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence, which issues regular updates on the war, said the Kakhovka reservoir was at “record high” water levels before the breach. While the dam has not been completely washed away, the ministry warned its structure “is likely to deteriorate further in the coming days, causing additional flooding.”
The dam provides irrigation and drinking water for much of southern Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Underlining the global impact of the war, wheat prices rose 3% after the collapse. Ukraine and Russia are major global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other foodstuffs to Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
Both sides warned of an impending environmental catastrophe from polluted water, caused in part by oil leaks from the dam’s machinery. The empty reservoir could later deprive farmland of irrigation.
Officials from Russia and Ukraine, and the UN, have said it will take days to assess the damage, and warned of a long recovery period.
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Associates Press reporter Illia Novikov in Kiev contributed to this report
