Around 42,000 people are at risk from the destruction of Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka dam as rescue efforts continue to save people trapped by the rising waters, according to Ukrainian officials.
At least seven people are missing while up to another 100 people are trapped in the town of Nova Kakhovka, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
About 42,000 people were at risk from flooding in Russian and Ukrainian-controlled areas along the Dnipro River, said Ukrainian officials, as the United Nations aid chief warned of “grave and far-reaching consequences”.
The RIA news agency reported the town’s Russian-installed mayor, Vladimir Leontyev, as saying that “thousands of animals” at the Nizhnedniprovsky National Nature Park had also been killed, and that the scale of the disaster was “huge” with the area at risk of contamination.
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Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the destruction of the dam, which has sent floodwaters across a war zone and forced thousands to flee.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford, reporting downriver from the dam, said the water level had increased by “four feet” overnight amid a “sense of desperation” in the area – and experts think the water will keep rising for the next “four or five days before it starts to recede”.
She said: “There’s an awful lot more boats this morning than we saw at all yesterday. It was just civilians using their own boats and anything that could get wading through the water to get to their pets, to get to their homes, to try to get to their elderly relatives, many of whom have stayed behind despite all the bombing and shelling.
“We reckon (the water level) has probably come up about four feet overnight. So substantially more flooded, which I guess is why the police and the military are out here in some numbers and are bringing boats.
“Whether that’s enough boats, we don’t know. Certainly, there’s going to be, I think, growing anger about what’s happened and also a sense of desperation because a lot of this water, it looks very tranquil, but even yesterday we were wading through sewage, basically, and this is right in the town centre.
“They’re worried about the future implications of disease.
“We were speaking to a lot of the volunteers who have come here to help and they are bringing piles of medicine, antibiotics and cleaning materials.
“Dam construction experts have been trying to work out how much more of the foundations are likely to disintegrate around the dam and they’re predicting it will because of the sheer force of the water it’s been holding back – and that will unleash even more water.”
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More water will be unleashed due to ‘sheer force’
The governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Wednesday that 1,582 houses had been flooded on the right bank of the river and some 1,457 people had been evacuated overnight.
The TASS agency, citing emergency services, said about 2,700 houses were flooded after the dam’s destruction.
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‘If the water rises, we will lose our house’
Residents have been seen wading through flooded streets carrying children on their shoulders, dogs in their arms and belongings in plastic bags while rescuers used rubber boats to continue searching for survivors.
One civilian, Oksana, 53, in Kherson, said: “Everything is submerged in water, all the furniture, the fridge, food, all flowers, everything is floating. I do not know what to do.”
Oleksandr Reva, who has been moving his family’s belongings into the abandoned home of a neighbour on higher ground, said: “If the water rises for another metre, we will lose our house.”
