Major dam in southern Ukraine ‘blown up’, unleashing floodwaters
- Ukraine and Russia trade blame after breach in the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam
- Evacuation orders given for settlements as Ukraine warns of widespread flooding
Ukraine and Russia accused each other on Tuesday of blowing up a dam and causing widespread flooding in southern Ukraine, endangering Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and threatening drinking water supplies as both sides in the war rushed to evacuate residents.
The South command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Russian forces blew up the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam in occupied Kherson region.
Unverified videos on social media showed intense explosions around the dam and water surging through. The dam, 30 metres tall and 3.2km (2 miles) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro river.
It holds water equal to that in the Great Salt Lake in the US state of Utah and also supplies water to Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control.
“The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified,” the Ukrainian military said on Facebook.
Russian news agencies said the dam had been destroyed in shelling while the mayor of Russia-controlled Nova Kahhovka city was quoted as blaming an act of terrorism – Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.
Both sides warned of a looming environmental disaster. Ukraine’s Presidential Office said some 150 metric tons of oil escaped from the dam machinery and that another 300 metric tons could still leak out.
There was no “critical danger” to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia facility – Europe’s largest nuclear plant – Russia’s Tass state agency cited a Moscow-backed official in the Zaporizhzhia region as saying.
The Russian installed head of the Kherson region said evacuation near the dam has begun and that water would reach critical levels within five hours.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general on Tuesday said 17,000 people were being evacuated.
“Over 40,000 people are in danger of being flooded. Ukrainian authorities are evacuating over 17,000 people,” Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, said on social media, adding that 25,000 more people should be evacuated on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River.
It was not immediately clear how the floodwaters would affect Ukraine’s long planned counteroffensive against Russian forces who are dug in across southern and eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis.
Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of targeting the dam with attacks, and last October Zelensky predicted that Russia would destroy the dam to cause a flood.
Authorities, experts and residents have for months expressed concerns about water flows through – and over – the Nova Kakhovka dam.
The water level at the town immediately near the dam has risen by 10 metres (33 feet) and will increase further, its Russia-installed mayor said on Tuesday.
“The water continues to mount. An evacuation is being carried out of civilians from the adjacent flooded zones to preserve all lives … There is no panic in the town,” Vladimir Leontyev said in a video message on Telegram.
Leontyev said the peak water level in Nova Kakhovka was expected to be 12 metres. The town still had electricity, but two settlements downstream had been taken off the power grid, Leontyev said.
An emergencies official accompanying him in the video said the water level was expected to rise for 72 hours before subsiding and allowing authorities to mount a clean-up operation.
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In February, water levels were so low that many feared a meltdown at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the Kakhovka reservoir held up by the dam.
Tuesday’s breach has raised fears of a nuclear accident at Europe’s largest nuclear power station.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said on Tuesday that a prolonged absence of cooling water would disrupt the work of its emergency diesel generators, the Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Grossi said he will travel to the plant next week.
By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.
Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro River, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.
The Nova Kakhovka dam – the one furthest downstream in the Kherson region – is controlled by Russian forces.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
