Rescue crews in paddle boats, motorized rubber rafts and enormous amphibious vehicles ferried passengers across the waist-deep pond that filled what had been an open-air plaza in the riverside city before the still-unexplained collapse of the Kakhovka dam.
KHERSON, Ukraine — All day Wednesday, rescue crews in paddle boats, motorized rubber rafts and enormous amphibious vehicles ferried passengers across the waist-deep pond that filled what had been an open-air plaza in this riverside city before the dam Kakhovka collapsed.The families were deposited on a cobblestone ramp, where they put down bundles of salvaged clothing and mementos while police checked their identification. Volunteers waited to escort them to evacuation buses or relatives’ homes.
But Klymenko warned of the danger of ecological damage and contamination from toxic substances in the aftermath of the flooding. He said 1.5 million gallons of oil had spilled into the reservoir surrounding the broken dam, and many factories and gas stations were submerged. Kherson is a major shipbuilding center and port where the Dnieper flows into the Black Sea.Officials in Kherson declined to comment on how the dam attack and resulting floods might affect the war effort.
Humeniuk said the flooding had caused Russian forces to retreat from their first lines of defense. She said Russian mines, barricades and trenches on the east side of the Dnieper had been “pushed back” in the past several days. Oxzana Glashevska, 53, was waiting with her sharpei dog and watching a neighbor’s hamster in a cage, both of which she expected to put on the bus. She did not want to leave her apartment of 32 years, she said, but when the water reached two feet, she finally waved to a rescue boat to pick her up. “We couldn’t even let the dog outside any more, so we really had to leave,” she said.
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