Kakhovka dam collapse said to have dire consequences and ‘severe humanitarian impact’

A satellite image shows flooding at the Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power facility on Tuesday. PHOTO: REUTERS
Rescuers evacuate residents from a flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam breached, in Kherson on Tuesday. PHOTO: REUTERS
A woman and her son with their two cats wait to register for assistance after exiting a train carrying evacuees from Kherson, at the train station in Mykolaiv on Tuesday. PHOTO: NYTIMES
Red Cross volunteers evacuate an elderly woman from Kherson, Ukraine, after the dam breach. PHOTO: REUTERS
Local residents carry their personal belongings on a flooded street, in Kherson, Ukraine. PHOTO: REUTERS
A view shows the House of Culture on a flooded street after the nearby dam was breached in Nova Kakhovka on Tuesday. PHOTO: REUTERS
A dog sits in the window of a building in a flooded street in the Ukrainian town of Kherson. PHOTO: AFP
A house in a flooded part of Kherson, Ukraine. PHOTO: AFP
A resident stands next to the entrance to her apartment block, on a flooded street in Kherson, Ukraine. PHOTO: REUTERS

KHERSON, Ukraine - The destruction of the Kakhovka dam will flood tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural area in southern Ukraine and could turn at least 500,000ha of land left without irrigation into “deserts”, Ukraine’s agriculture ministry has warned.

The dam on the Dnipro River was destroyed on Tuesday, flooding a swathe of the front line in the Kherson region, forcing villagers to flee.

On Wednesday, villagers on the Russian side of the front line in Ukraine surveyed the damage to their flooded homes after the massive dam breach and waited for help from the authorities, while people clamoured for information in chat rooms.

Russian-installed officials ordered residents of three districts to leave their homes on Tuesday, as water surged from the collapsed dam, with Ukraine and Russia each accusing the other of blowing it up.

Mr Vladimir Saldo, the top Russian-installed official in the Kherson region, said on Wednesday he had declared a state of emergency.

So far, 1,500 people have been evacuated from flooded settlements and 48 temporary accommodation centres have been set up, he said.

Ukraine, a major global producer and exporter of grain, has accused Moscow of committing a war crime by blowing up the Soviet-era dam, which powered a hydroelectric station and was occupied by Russia.

The Kremlin blames the collapse on Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called the attack a “barbaric act”, in his first public reaction to the incident.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said he spoke about the “humanitarian and environmental consequences” of the Kakhovka dam’s destruction in a phone call on Wednesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Some independent experts said the dam may have collapsed due to earlier damage and intense pressure on it.

Kyiv has estimated that about 42,000 people are at risk from flooding. Mr Zelensky said the dam’s collapse had left hundreds of thousands of people without normal access to drinking water.

“The destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station will lead to the fact that fields in the south of Ukraine may turn into deserts next year,” Ukraine’s agriculture ministry said.

It said in a statement late issued late on Tuesday that the disaster would cut off water supply to 31 irrigation systems in the Ukrainian regions of Dnipro, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The ministry said that in 2021 – before Russia’s full-scale invasion – these systems provided irrigation on 584,000ha from which farmers harvested about four million tonnes of grains and oilseeds.

The dam’s destruction has left 94 per cent of irrigation systems in Kherson, 74 per cent of those in Zaporizhzhia and 30 per cent of those in Dnipro regions without water, it said.

The ministry also quoted preliminary estimates indicating that around 10,000ha of agricultural land on the right bank of the Kherson region would be flooded.

“Several times more (land will be under water) on the left bank of the region, which is currently under occupation,” the ministry said.

The ministry has not said how much grain could be lost because of flooding.

In the town of Nova Kakhovka right next to the dam, brown water covered main streets that were largely empty of residents.

On the bank of the Dnipro river by the Enerhiya stadium, small trees were submerged nearly up to their leaves.

In residential areas, locals stood in knee-high water beside their flooded cars.

Mr Valery Melnik, 53, waded through what remained of his home. Ankle-high floodwater lapped against a refrigerator and a green couch, and valuables had been placed out of reach.

“We’re waiting until the water leaves. We will dry it out,” he said, adding that he had hoped for help from the local authorities to pump out the water, but so far “they are not doing anything”.

Water levels in Nova Kakhovka had started to recede by midday on Wednesday, the town’s Russian-installed mayor, Mr Vladimir Leontyev, said in an interview posted on his Telegram channel.

Russia’s Tass news agency said about 2,700 houses were flooded after the dam was destroyed. At least seven people were missing, Moscow-backed officials said.

The Kakhovka dam is located on the front line of the conflict.

Kyiv said the destruction of the dam – seized by Russia in the early hours of the war – was an attempt by Moscow to hamper its long-awaited offensive, which Ukraine’s leader stressed would not be affected.

On its part, Russia said Ukraine was using the dam breach to distract as its recently launched major counteroffensive was faltering.

Kherson is the largest population centre near the dam. On Tuesday, the area’s residents headed for higher ground as water poured from the Dnipro River.

The city, which was the scene of heavy fighting in 2022, is about 60km downstream from the dam, and water levels rose by 3.5m on Tuesday.

No fatalities have been reported so far, but White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the flooding had probably caused “many deaths”.

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council that the dam breach “will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine on both sides of the front line through the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods”.

“The sheer magnitude of the catastrophe will only become fully realised in the coming days,” he said. 

Satellite images taken on Tuesday afternoon by Maxar Technologies of more than 2,500 sq km between Nova Kakhovka and the Dniprovska Gulf, south-west of Kherson city on the Black Sea, showed numerous towns and villages submerged.

The Tass news agency, citing emergency services, said water levels in some parts of southern Kherson are forecast to remain elevated for three to 10 days.

Residents earlier told Reuters that some had decided to stay despite being ordered out. 

“They say they are ready to shoot without warning,” said one man, Hlib, describing encounters with Russian troops. 

The Kazkova Dibrova zoo on the Russian-held riverbank was completely flooded and all 300 animals were dead, a representative said via the zoo’s Facebook account. 

‘War crime’

Mr Zelensky urged the world to “react” as he accused Russia of blowing up the dam and said the authorities expected up to 80 settlements to be flooded.

“This crime carries enormous threats and will have dire consequences for people’s lives and the environment,” he told a Vatican peace envoy, Italian cardinal Matteo Zuppi, in Kyiv, the presidency said. He later said in a Telegram message that the explosion “did not affect Ukraine’s ability to de-occupy its own territories”.

Kyiv also called for a meeting of the UN Security Council and warned of a potential “ecocide” after 150 tonnes of engine oil spilled into the river.

Western powers also blamed Russia for the damage, with European Union chief Charles Michel calling it a “war crime”, while Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said the dam breach was “outrageous”.

The United States “cannot say conclusively what happened at this point”, Mr Kirby told reporters. But Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told reporters it would not make sense for Ukraine to destroy the dam and harm its own people.

The Geneva Conventions ban targeting dams in war because of the danger to civilians.

Mr Zelensky said in a video address that his prosecutors had already approached the International Criminal Court about the dam. Earlier, he claimed on Telegram that Russian forces blew up the power plant from inside.

Russia, however, said the dam was partially destroyed by “multiple strikes” coming from Ukrainian forces, and urged the world to condemn Kyiv’s “criminal acts”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the destruction was the result of “deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side”.

The dam, built in the 1950s, sits on the Dnipro River and supplies water to a wide area of southern Ukrainian farmland, including the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. It also provides cooling water for the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is about 150km away.

Moscow and Kyiv have offered conflicting versions on the safety of the facility.

The Russian-installed director of the plant, Mr Yuri Chernichuk, said water levels in the cooling pond had not changed and “at the moment, there is no security threat to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”.

The UN nuclear watchdog said Zaporizhzhia should have enough water to cool its reactors for “some months” from a separate pond.

Floods could shift mines

“The world once again finds itself on the brink of a nuclear disaster, because the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost its source of cooling. And this danger is now growing rapidly,” Mr Zelensky’s aide, Mr Mykhaylo Podolyak, said.

The Ukrainian nuclear operator, Energoatom, said the water level of the Kakhovka reservoir was “rapidly decreasing, which is an additional threat to the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”.

The UN humanitarian agency said it was concerned about “the severe humanitarian impact on hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the front line”.

“Flooding and fast-moving water can move mines and explosive ordnance to new areas which previously had been assessed as safe, thus putting more people in danger,” it added.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter that the EU had pledged “necessary assistance and humanitarian aid to mitigate the consequences of this Russia-made disaster”.

‘Russia loses 71 soldiers’

News of the damage came after Russia said Ukraine had begun a long-expected counteroffensive to claw back lost territory after Moscow invaded in February 2022.

On Tuesday, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that Moscow had halted Kyiv’s offensive but lost 71 soldiers over the past three days, an extremely rare admission of Russia’s losses.

On Monday, Mr Zelensky praised his troops for advances claimed near the devastated city of Bakhmut.

Kyiv already accused Moscow of mining the dam as combat raged nearby in October, during the last major offensive by Ukrainian forces seeking to regain lost territory. Russia denies the claim.

As Kyiv works on a long-awaited counteroffensive, some military analysts said the flooding could benefit Russia by slowing or limiting any potential Ukrainian advance along that part of the front line.

In a boost for Ukraine’s military, Mr Zelensky said he had received “a serious, powerful” offer from countries ready to provide F-16 fighter jets.

“Our partners know how many aircraft we need,” he was quoted as saying in a statement on his website.

“I have already received an understanding of the number from some of our European partners... It is a serious, powerful offer.”

Kyiv now awaits a final agreement with its allies, including “a joint agreement with the United States”, Mr Zelensky said.

It is not clear which of Ukraine’s allies are ready to provide it with the jets. REUTERS, AFP

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