Authorities rushed to rescue hundreds of people and supply drinking water to areas flooded by a collapsed dam in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, in a growing humanitarian and ecological disaster.
Residents are evacuated from a flooded neighborhood in Kherson, Ukraine, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 after the Kakhovka dam was blown up. Residents of southern Ukraine braced for a second day of swelling floodwaters on Wednesday as authorities warned that a Dnieper River dam breach would continue to unleash pent-up waters from a giant reservoir.
Some residents of Russia-occupied areas hit by high water complained that help was slow in arriving, with some stranded on roofs and streets passable only by boat in scenes more like natural disasters than wars. Others refused to leave. The dam and reservoir, essential for fresh water and irrigation for southern Ukraine, lies in the Kherson region that Moscow illegally annexed in September and has occupied for the past year. The reservoir is also critical for water supplies to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
“It’s going to lead to lasting damage to agriculture, provision of drinkable water. And it’s going to wipe out entire communities,” Kofman — who is with the Center for Naval Analyses, a U.S. research group — told “PBS NewsHour.” Ukraine’s agriculture ministry warned, “The fields in the south of Ukraine next year can turn into deserts.”
Residents are evacuated from a flooded neighborhood in Kherson, Ukraine, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 after the Kakhovka dam was blown up. Residents of southern Ukraine braced for a second day of swelling floodwaters on Wednesday as authorities warned that a Dnieper River dam breach would continue to unleash pent-up waters from a giant reservoir.
Civilians in the city of Kherson clutched personal belongings as they waded through knee-deep water or rode rubber rafts. Video showed rescuers carrying people to safety, and what looked like the triangular roof of a building floating downstream. It was unclear how the dam disaster would affect the war and Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian troops. Artillery booms served as background to rescue efforts as people scrambled to leave the danger zone.
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