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Emergency workers evacuate residents in a rubber boat from a flooded neighborhood in Kherson. Alamy Stock Photo
Ukraine
Almost 6,000 people evacuated from flooded regions after Russian-held dam is destroyed
People in Kherson, the most populous nearby city, headed for higher ground as water poured into the Dnipro River.
ALMOST 6,000 PEOPLE have been evacuated on both sides of the Dnipro River after flooding caused by the destruction of the Russian-occupied Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, officials said today.
The destruction of the dam near the frontline in Ukraine flooded dozens of villages and parts of a nearby city, sparking fears of a humanitarian disaster.
Officials have said thousands will have to leave their homes and many are already doing so under their own steam.
“The evacuation of the population continues in the Kherson region. Our rescuers, police and volunteers have already evacuated 1,894 citizens,” Ukraine’s Interior Minister Oleg Klymenko said on television.
He said 30 settlements had been flooded, 10 of which are under Russian control.
“So far, more than 4,000 people have been evacuated,” in the part of the Kherson region occupied by Russia, the Moscow-installed head of the region Vladimir Saldo said on Telegram.
“It is a bit premature to talk about going back,” Saldo said, advising people to wait in centres for the displaced.
On the Russian side, the most affected town is Nova Kakhovka, where Russian authorities said they would start pumping water out tomorrow.
In Ukrainian-controlled Kherson, AFP journalists saw rescuers using small boats and amphibious vehicles to get to stranded locals, some of whom had to flee with little more than their passports and pets.
“We don’t have a house anymore. You can’t even see the roof,” said Dmytro Melnikov, 46, who escaped from his flooded home with his five children.
“The whole district is underwater now. It’s above the level of ground floors,” he said, holding his daughter’s hand.
Rescuers used small boats and amphibious vehicles to get to stranded locals, some of whom had to flee with little more than their passports.
The Dnipro River that flows through Kherson has risen by more than five metres since the dam upstream was destroyed early Tuesday, and official expected it to keep rising throughout Wednesday.
Laura Musiyan, from Kherson’s hydrometeorological centre, had bloody knuckles and scratched feet from falling in an open sewer when measuring water levels.
“Many people don’t evacuate because they hope the water will recede quickly. But so far, there is no good news,” she said.
‘Real nightmare’
Some locals had to take their lives into their own hands by swimming through the water, and one man paddled to safety on an inflatable mattress.
Nataliya Korzh, 68, told how she had to swim part of the way to escape from her house, her legs covered with scratches, her hands trembling from the cold.
“All my rooms are underwater. My fridge is floating, the freezer, cupboards, everything,” she said.
“To get to the room where the dogs were, I would have had to dive. I don’t know what’s happened to them,” she said as she stepped out of a dinghy helped by two rescuers, her feet bare, wearing a wet top and sweatpants.
She was also unable to save her cat.
The rescuers — a combination of police officers, emergency services and troops — lifted people and dogs out of rubber dinghies onto dry ground and rapidly set off again to rescue more stranded residents.
“The guys came to collect me. My son phoned them,” Nataliya said as she carried her medicine and a few bags of belongings.
“We’re used to shooting, but a natural disaster is a real nightmare,” she added.
As finger-pointing persisted over the dam’s destruction, Moscow accused Kyiv of blowing up a section of the Togliatti-Odesa pipeline that Russia used before the war to export ammonia, and whose re-activation it has requested as part of talks for a deal on Ukraine grain exports.
Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of firing at the pipeline.
Emergency coordination panel
Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he will chair a meeting of an emergency coordination panel with Ukraine on the “outrageous destruction” of the dam tomorrow.
In a tweet, he said that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba would participate by video link in the meeting of the Nato-Ukraine Commission.
Kuleba tweeted that the meeting was called at his request, and said Stoltenberg had promised “Nato mechanisms will be used to provide humanitarian assistance”.
A Nato spokeswoman said no more details on the meeting, including the time it would be held, were available to share with the media.
Kuleba reiterated Kyiv’s accusation that the “crisis” was “caused by Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam”.
Britain said it would wait for more facts before apportioning blame for the dam’s destruction.
France, another key Ukraine ally in Nato, said it would send aid to Ukraine. President Emmanuel Macron, writing on Twitter after speaking by telephone with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, condemned “this atrocious act”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed an international commission to investigate the damage after speaking with Putin and Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy said on Twitter that he had sent Erdogan “a list of Ukraine’s urgent needs to eliminate the disaster”.
Had a phone call with the President of 🇹🇷 Türkiye @RTErdogan. Spoke about the humanitarian and environmental consequences of the Russian act of terrorism at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, including risks for #ZNPP. Handed over a list of Ukraine's urgent needs to…
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 7, 2023
Putin denounced the breach as “a barbaric act which has led to a large-scale environmental and humanitarian catastrophe”, according to the Kremlin.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told AFP that London was unwilling to apportion blame yet and was waiting for “all available facts”.
He added, however, that Russia bore ultimate responsibility as “this event is a direct repercussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.
‘Environmental bomb’
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the dam’s destruction would hamper efforts to locate landmines in the affected region.
“We knew where the hazards were,” said Erik Tollefsen, head of the ICRC’s Weapon Contamination Unit. “Now we don’t know. All we know is that they are somewhere downstream.”
The United Nations warned that hundreds of thousands could be affected on both sides of the frontline.
Zelenskyy expressed dismay at a lack of help from the UN and Red Cross.
“They are not there,” he told Germany’s Bild daily, adding that he was “in shock because I think they are the forces who have to be there to save people’s lives”.
Earlier today he accused Russia of having detonated an “environmental bomb of mass destruction”, saying authorities expected up to 80 settlements with tens of thousands of residents to be flooded.
“This crime carries enormous threats and will have dire consequences for people’s lives and the environment,” Zelenskyy said.
But the explosion would “not affect Ukraine’s ability to de-occupy its own territories”, he added.
Last October, Zelenskyy accused Russia of planting mines at the dam, warning that its destruction would spur a new wave of refugees into Europe.
‘Atrocious act’
Kyiv said 150 tonnes of engine oil had spilled into the river, and the agricultural ministry said about 10 thousand hectares of farmland on the right bank of the river would be flooded and “several times more” on the left bank.
China expressed “serious concern” over the dam destruction, EU chief Charles Michel called it a “war crime”.
French President Emmanuel Macron said late this evening he would send aid to Ukraine “within the next few hours” in response to the crisis. He condemned the “atrocious act” of the dam’s destruction.
Russia has said the dam was partially destroyed by “multiple strikes” from Ukrainian forces and urged the world to condemn Kyiv’s “criminal acts”.
The reservoir formed by the Soviet-era dam on the Dnipro River, built in the 1950s, provides cooling water for the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant some 150 kilometres (90 miles) away.
‘No immediate risk’
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – which has a team of experts at the plant – said yesterday that it saw “no short-term risk to nuclear safety and security”.
Though the reservoir’s water level is falling, the facility has “back-up options available”, the IAEA said in a statement.
Karine Herviou, the deputy head of France’s IRSN nuclear safety regulator, also told AFP there was “no immediate risk to the safety of the plant”.
The plant’s Russian-installed director, Yuri Chernichuk, insisted there was no security threat to the plant.
But Ukraine – which in 1986 suffered the devastating Chernobyl nuclear disaster – sounded the alarm.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Tuesday that the world “once again finds itself on the brink of a nuclear disaster”.
© AFP 2023, with additional reporting from David Mac Redmond
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