As the flooding subsides, the scale of the Kakhovka dam disaster begins to come into focus
The spate of flooding around the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine eased further on Sunday, leaving authorities grappling with a disaster that has left at least 13 people dead, at least 29 others reported missing and dozens of communities without access to clean water.
Ukraine’s state emergency service, local volunteer groups and aid organizations are struggling to respond to the fallout from Tuesday’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam, which sent a torrent of water from the reservoir upstream into the river basin. Relief workers are also assessing the long-term effects of the disaster on the environment.
The collapse of the dam has horrified Ukrainians, already battered by 15 months of Russian airstrikes, the torture and deportation of civilians and the occupation of parts of their land, in part because of the scale of environmental destruction.
Russian forces checked the dam, and engineering and munitions experts have said a deliberate explosion in the dam likely caused its collapse. US intelligence analysts suspect Russia was behind the dam’s destruction, but have not yet conclusive evidence on who was responsible. Moscow’s accusations that the Kiev government was responsible for the disaster have been met with contempt in Ukraine.
In its latest update on the toll of the disaster, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said 77 urban settlements in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions are under water and rescuers have evacuated more than 3,600 people, many of whom are elderly. Many more residents have fled the area on their own by car and rail.
The surge of water through the dam peaked a few days after the explosion and has since begun to subside as the water flows into the Black Sea. On Sunday, Ukrhydroenergo, Ukraine’s state hydropower company, said the water level in the reservoir had dropped by about a meter in the past 24 hours, and by more than 6.5 meters in total since the dam collapsed.
The drop in water levels poses a new risk to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is located on the eastern shore of the reservoir, is also controlled by Russian forces and uses reservoir water to cool its reactors. But Ukrainian authorities and the UN’s nuclear watchdog say the threat is under control. It also complicates military calculations for both sides as one Ukrainian counteroffensive begins to retake land in the south and east of the country.
The dam disaster has poisoned water resources and over time will deplete groundwater levels upstream, creating a long-term problem for a population far beyond those living in the immediate flood zone. It will also affect the irrigation that feeds the fertile land in the river’s basin, a rich source of the country’s agricultural exports, and threaten wildlife in a region with several national parks.
“The situation in national parks is critical,” Ukrainian Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets said in a post on Facebook.
Ukraine controls the area west of the river, while Russian forces occupy a belt to the east from which they have launched thousands of rockets and missiles at the city of Kherson and surrounding villages in recent months.
On the Russian-occupied eastern bank Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-installed governor, said Saturday morning that more than 6,000 people had been evacuated from the Russian-occupied flooded areas, including 235 children. More than 60 people had been hospitalized, he said on Telegram.
The dam disaster also poses potential problems Crimeaan arid region that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 and depends for part of its water supply on a canal fed by the Dnipro River.
The flooding has “seriously disrupted this primary source of water,” according to a report released by Britain’s defense intelligence agency on Sunday.
“Russian authorities are likely to meet the immediate water needs of the population through reservoirs, water rationing, drilling new wells and supplying bottled water from Russia,” the report said.